


Side Effects

by charcoal_moon



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Teen Titans (Animated Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, But Also!, Canon-Typical Violence, Episode: s01e12-13 Apprentice Parts 1-2, F/M, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Justice, Minor Original Character(s), Red X Is Jason Todd, Updates Wednesdays, do not copy to another site, on hiatus because author's life is a raging dumpster fire
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:54:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 36,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23526478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charcoal_moon/pseuds/charcoal_moon
Summary: An impulsive hunt for something fun to do leads the Teen Titans to a circus. There, they meet a talented, taciturn acrobat, and in a scant handful of months, he becomes startlingly important to them.But Dick Grayson's past is fraught with pain.And if the team isn’t careful, his secrets will destroy them all.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Dick Grayson & Koriand'r & Garfield Logan & Raven & Victor Stone, Raven/Beast Boy
Comments: 51
Kudos: 145





	1. Hollywood Undead - Lion

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Thank you so much for checking this out. It's somewhat of a departure from my usual works, seeing as it's much darker in tone. 
> 
> I would like to reiterate that Side Effects contains **graphic depictions of violence and implied/referenced child abuse.** I will post specific warnings at the start of certain chapters.
> 
> If you're still on board, please enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Act I - The Week (Monday)
> 
> An _explosive_ new start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prologue and the next few chapters will be short, but they'll get longer as time goes by!

_‘Cause I am a lion, and you are dead._

On a cold Monday morning, a warehouse explodes.

The boy just outside of the blast radius falls to his knees, relief flooding through his veins. He's done it. He's actually done it. It's over.

No one could’ve survived an explosion like that.

Shaking with exertion and lightheaded due to blood loss, the boy stands. He hobbles toward the nearest bus station, ripping off and discarding bits of his costume with each step he takes. He won't rest until he claws the microchip out of his arm (and takes off the _goddamn_ collar), but this is enough for now.

The terminal looms before him, but he pauses before he enters. He's still wearing a domino mask. He should remove it, lest he draw any suspicion.

The boy sticks a fingernail under the mask's edge and pulls until the spirit gum seal breaks. The scrap of black and white fabric curls up innocently in his hand.

He meets his eyes in the window. _I look like a hunted animal,_ he thinks.

Has he ever been hunted? Probably. _He_ had liked to play games— the boy can't remember them all.

He shoves the mask into his pocket and stumbles into the terminal. The teller manning the front desk drops her magazine when she sees him.

"Oh my god! What happened to you?"

A more accurate question would be _what didn't happen?_ What didn't he do? What wasn't done _to_ him? The boy laughs to himself and then slams a wad of blood money onto the counter.

"Nothing important. I want a ticket to LA."

"Don't you need the police? Or at least an ambulance?" The woman asks. There's genuine concern in her voice. Too bad the boy doesn't deserve it.

"I'll live. Ticket, please."

With reluctance in her movements, the teller takes the money and hands him the slip of paper that's going to get him out of this hell.

Good. He never wants to set foot in Jump City again.

* * *

The boy wakes when the bus pulls into Los Angeles. Ah. He'd drifted into sleep, or perhaps he'd fallen unconscious. Though he'd bandaged his wounds to the best of his ability, he's still half-starved and exhausted. His ordeal had taken a toll on him.

And it isn't over yet. He needs to find some shelter. He totters out of the vehicle and vanishes into the crowd, planning his next move. Can he rent a hotel room? Is that allowed when he's underage?

Apparently, the answer is _yes, if the place is seedy enough._

The boy rinses the blood and grime off his hands, collapses into bed, and doesn't move for the next two days. Once he finally gets himself together, he buys three things: Chinese takeout, a new outfit, and a knife.

He eats.

He showers and changes.

Then, he cuts off the collar. 

The sound of it hitting the bottom of the wastebasket is music to his ears. After that's done, he rolls up his sleeve and finds a bump in his skin— the place where a tracking device had been implanted. He's aware that he's risking nerve damage by doing this, but he doesn't care.

He slices open his arm and tears the chip out of his body. With a vindictive smile on his face, he drops it, crushing it underneath his heel.

That's it. He's free.

Now, what is he supposed to _do_ with his freedom?

-

The boy doesn't find an answer to that question for another few days. That's when the circus comes to town. He stares up at the big top, assaulted by childhood memories. Would it be crazy of him to go back to being an acrobat?

_Well… it's not like I have anywhere else to be._

He slinks into the tent during the final show of the day. The scent of popcorn tickles his nose, and excited chatter swirls into his ears. A sudden, violent flood of homesickness threatens to drown him. The boy pushes the feeling aside— it’s useless to dwell on the past.

Instead, he waits for the future.

The show ends, and in droves, the spectators file out. Immediately, the performers follow suit, taking their props back to their trailers. In the chaos, the boy spots a tall woman wearing a top hat. She must be the ringmaster.

Like the bird whose name he once shared, the boy glides towards her, soundless until he’s ensconced in her shadow. That’s when he clears his throat. She whips around, and quick reflexes are all that save him from being clocked with a cane.

“Holy shit,” she hisses, clearly startled. “How did you get behind me?”

The boy inclines a shoulder, a half-smile flitting across his face. He’s so used to being quiet that he’s forgotten how to make noise. The ringmaster sighs.

“Whatever. Show’s over, kid.”

“I know,” he replies. “I wasn’t here to watch. I want to join you.”

The ringmaster gives him a long, hard look. Then she scoffs and spins on her heel, returning to her trailer. He follows, jogging to keep up with her long strides.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” She groans when she realizes she hasn’t gotten rid of him.

“No.”

“Oh my god. Where are your parents?”

The boy lowers his gaze. “Dead and gone.”

That stops the ringmaster in her tracks. Wincing at the sudden pity on her face, he says, “Look, I can perform. Give me a chance.”

"Perform… how? Do you juggle or something?"

"No. I can work a trapeze." Or he used to be able to. He'll see if he still remembers how when he's up there.

Narrowing her eyes, the woman walks back to the tent. By now, all the performers are gone, but the trapeze and high wire are still standing.

“The floor is yours,” the ringmaster says, waving an impassive hand.

He takes a deep breath, feeling the ache in his cracked ribs and the sting of countless contusions. His arm throbs where he'd torn out the chip. But it's fine. He's been in mortal combat with worse injuries— he can handle a few acrobatic tricks.

The boy takes a running jump and launches himself into a series of handsprings, cartwheels, and flips that carry him to the base of a nearby ladder. Ignoring the woman's surprised gasp, he scrambles up the rungs.

A tub of powdered chalk rests on the platform under the trapeze. He applies it to his fingers and palms, trying not to tear up at the familiar scent, and then grips the bar. Paranoia sends his eyes flicking to the wires, but there are no visible flaws. He'll probably live.

He just has to take a leap of faith and see what happens.

He flings himself off the platform and takes to the sky. It's… familiar. Wonderful. Everything that he'd missed in his years of captivity. He can't help but beam as he dances in the air.

Five minutes into his impromptu routine, the ringmaster calls, "Get down here! You're hired, ya big show-off!"

The boy climbs down the ladder and comes to a halt before the ringmaster. She’s looking at him with respect in her eyes. He feels the childish urge to stick out his tongue— take that, nonbeliever!— but he refrains. Euphoria is no excuse to act like a fool.

"I'm Lexi Parker. Who are you, wonder boy?" The woman asks.

"Richard, but you can call me whatever," Dick Grayson says, holding out his hand. "It's nice to meet you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of each chapter is formulaic (Artist - Song). The first line of each chapter is a line from the titular song.


	2. Cailin Russo & Chrissy Costanza - Phoenix

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Act I - The Week (Tuesday)
> 
> _Three years later..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! A couple of notes about this chapter...
> 
> First, this is not at all how circuses work, and I am so sorry. 
> 
> Next, the Titans do not live in a giant, T-shaped tower, seeing as they don't have the same financial backing I assume they had in the show. 
> 
> Finally, the second of the only relevant OCs makes her first appearance in this chapter. I promise that after the end of Act I, the sole focus will be on canon characters!

_You gotta conquer the monster in your head, and then you’ll fly. Fly, phoenix, fly._

It’s a Tuesday evening, and Dick is lining his eyes with kohl. The first show of the night is in twenty-five minutes. Honestly, he should have been ready ages ago, but bad memories kept him locked in his position under his covers. Now, he’s rushing through the application of his stage makeup, barely glancing at the half-covered mirror in front of him.

Someone pulls open the door of his trailer, and Dick drops the kohl, scrambling for his mask.

“Relax,” a voice drawls. “It’s just me, Dick.”

Dick glances over his shoulder and catches sight of Lexi. The ringmaster is already clad in her own costume, a classy suit that reminds him of Zatanna Zatara’s.

“Why aren’t you ready, kid? You’re the star of the show.”

“Maybe the star doesn’t want to shine,” Dick retorts, rolling his eyes. He stoops down and picks up the pencil, continuing, “I literally told you that I didn’t want to come here.”

Lexi clicks her tongue. “Right. I thought you'd run like a bat out of hell when I said it wasn't up for debate.”

The acrobat turns away. He'd certainly thought about fleeing. This is the setting of his nightmares, a place of pain and anguish and smoking rubble. If he inhales, he can still smell ashes.

If he looks in the mirror for too long, he sees blood dripping from his eyes.

“Chin up, Petroica,” Lexi says. The sound of his stage name startles Dick out of his downward spiral, and he hastily plasters the mask over his face.

Lexi smiles at him. “Whatever’s got you so spooked won’t matter when you’re in the air.”

“Right,” Dick sighs. He follows the ringmaster out of the trailer, his translucent red cape swaying behind him. As they walk to the big top, other performers wave at the duo. One detaches from a small crowd and bounds over to them.

“Peter!” She chirps, skidding to a stop in front of Dick.

As always, it takes him a half-second to respond to the false name. “What’s up, Taylor?”

Taylor, a sprightly trapeze artist who seems determined to power the world through enthusiasm alone, flings her hands in the air. “Guess what?”

“What?” He laughs, accepting one of her proffered hands and twirling her around.

“This city has heroes! You know, like Metropolis and Central do!”

It takes every ounce of acting ability Dick has to keep his smile on his face. Cirque du Solstice has been through almost every major city in America, save for the ones with heroes or hero teams. This stop is a deviation from the norm (the norm that suited him _so well_ ).

Thankfully, Lexi starts talking, filling in the silence Dick created with his anger. “Really? Who are they?”

“They call them the Teen Titans,” Taylor says. Her eyes sparkle with glee. “Do you think they’ll come tonight? That would be so cool!”

 _I fucking hope not,_ Dick thinks. Aloud, he says, “Yeah. It really would.”

Light floods the circus grounds, and the clock winds down to the performance. Dick closes his eyes, ready to become someone else.

Just like a phoenix.

* * *

Across the city, the aforementioned Titans are assembled in their living room.

“Friends,” Starfire announces, flopping over the arm of the couch. “I am very bored.”

“Amen,” Cyborg grunts. “You guys wanna go watch a movie or something?”

“I’ll check the listings!” Garfield volunteers. He digs his laptop out of a pile of cushions and starts scrolling through the cinema's website. “They’ve got MIB: International, Avengers: Endgame, John Wick 3, Aladdin… aw, damn it! I thought they were still showing Detective Pikachu!”

“What is a Pikachu?” Starfire asks innocently. 

As Garfield ropes the alien princess into an in-depth explanation of the Pokemon franchise, Raven turns to Cyborg. “Find something else. And before you say ‘amusement park,’ Garfield and I went there the other day.”

“Ooh, you went on a hot date?” Cyborg teases. Raven rolls her eyes and makes a so-so motion with her hand, but she’s sure fondness is evident in her expression. 

(Garfield has a tendency to draw out her soft side.)

After a minute of searching on his built-in computer, the cybernetic man says, “Well, there’s a circus in town.”

“So Pikachu is the most well-known of— wait, did you just say circus? Do you know how badly those animals are treated?!” Garfield cuts himself off to exclaim.

“Don’t worry, BB. This circus doesn’t have any animals. It’s all people… and I think some of them have powers,” Cyborg says, displaying a clip of a performance.

“It could be fun,” Raven says tentatively. “I mean, unless someone has another suggestion.”

No one speaks up, so Starfire claps and says, “The circus it is!”

-

Twenty minutes later, Raven is settling into her seat and surveying the ring below her. “This is a good vantage point,” she tells Garfield. “You picked well.”

Her boyfriend gives her a cheeky grin. “I always said I knew how to pick ‘em!”

“Sap,” she intones, but heat rises to her pale face.

On Garfield’s other side, Cyborg upends a box of popcorn into his mouth. “This shit is quality. I’m talking premium popcorn, y’all.”

“The cotton candy is also marvelous!” Starfire adds. "I wish that…"

Raven feels the jolt of excitement run through the crowd before she sees the performers arrive. She hushes Starfire with a quick, “It’s starting.”

As one, the team turns their attention to the flurry of motion in the ring. A woman— the circus master, presumably— appears in a shower of sparks. She shouts, “Welcome, one and all, to Cirque du Solstice! Watch the magic unfold!”

And unfold it does. 

A variety of acts take the stage, each with varying levels of shock and awe incorporated into them. Firebreathers send plumes of flame into the air. A girl who is almost certainly a teleporter plays tricks with a bevy of knives. But the trapeze artists are really the ones to watch. They soar through the air like the bird whose name she shares.

And it seems that one of them is more talented than the others.

“—now, here he is: the man you’ve all been waiting for! Petroica!”

A young man dressed in a fiery red costume suddenly drops from the rafters of the tent and catches the trapeze with one hand. He swings down and flips away, linking hands with a girl. She launches Petroica— and isn’t that a strange name? What does it mean?— upwards once more.

 _“Petroica phoenicea_ is a species of robin native to Australia,” Garfield says, making Raven realize that she’d spoken aloud. 

At the startling sound of Garfield saying something scientific, Starfire and Cyborg turn to stare at him.

“What? It’s an animal!” The changeling snaps defensively. “I know about animals!”

“I guess you do,” Cyborg says. Huffing, Garfield returns his attention to the flash of red flitting through the air. Petroica moves so skillfully that he may as well be flying under his own power. Raven is awed by the way he makes each action look so effortless.

It must hurt, using your muscles to propel yourself from perch to perch. It must be scary, knowing that if you fall, you have no magic to catch you. Raven cannot relate to that, and her respect for the man rises.

The music swells to a crescendo, indicating that something big is about to happen. Petroica swings, his back arched gracefully, and hurtles toward the Titans. 

The first thought Raven has is, _Huh, he’s upside down. Doesn’t that hurt his knees?_

The second thought is, _Shit, is he going to crash into us?_

She needn’t have worried. Petroica comes close to them, but not painfully close. Instead, he taps Starfire on the nose and lets his momentum carry him backwards. Raven catches a glimpse of dark hair, a glittering mask, and an impish grin as he flies away.

Just above the center of the ring, Petroica lets go of the trapeze. The audience screams as he plunges toward the ground. 

Raven raises her hand, intending to catch him with her powers. It's a pointless gesture. The acrobat flips and twists in mid-air, bouncing out of the safety net and touching down in such a perfect three-point landing that the Titan is a little jealous.

Petroica stands and bows. The crowd showers him with applause.

“Goodnight, everybody!” He shouts. “We appreciate your patronage! Come see us again; we're here for two weeks!”

The Titans leave the tent in high spirits. Raven is buoyed up by the cheer saturating the air, and the feelings of happiness prompt her to lace her fingers through Garfield's.

"You really liked the show, huh?" He teases, swinging their linked hands. "Was it 'cause Petroica's hot?"

"Indeed, he was most attractive," Starfire says to Cyborg, almost missing Raven's protest of,

"I'm literally dating you!"

"So what? I'm dating you and I think he's hot! Like, damn, did you see his eyeliner?"

No, Raven had bloody well not, because she didn’t have eagle eyes. Still, she decides to indulge the shapeshifter, saying, “I’m sure it looked great.”

“I _promise_ it did.” Garfield grins at her. Turning to the others, he asks, “Hey, who wants ice cream?”

“Me!” Starfire sings, floating skywards and swooping toward the exit. Her sudden flight startles one of the performers, who promptly drops the drink she’d been holding. Raven’s powers snap outward, catching the falling cup before soda can splash over the girl’s pink and white costume.

“Oh my god,” the girl stammers as Raven carefully maneuvers the drink back into her hands. “You guys are Jump City’s heroes! Holy shit! I was literally _just_ telling the ringmaster that it would be so cool if you came, and you did!”

“We sure did,” Cyborg echoes, beaming. “You’re one of the acrobats, right? You guys were amazing!”

“Um, yes, I’m Taylor Lewis! And thank you so much, but honestly, we’re really only as good as we are because of Petroica. He’s, like, insanely talented.”

The Titans make varying sounds of agreement. Garfield, who evidently can't help himself, adds,

“He’s also insanely pretty!”

Taylor dissolves into giggles. “He is, he is! I don’t think Peter would agree with you, but the rest of us sure do!”

“What wouldn’t I agree to?” Someone says.

The group turns and is met with the sight of Petroica— Peter, apparently— himself. Complete shock flashes over his masked features when he sees the Titans. It’s quickly wiped away, replaced by an expression fit for performance. 

"I'm going to go out on a wild limb and say that you guys are the local hero team," the acrobat says. “I hope Taylor wasn’t bothering you; I know she’s a cape chaser.”

“Am not!” Taylor gasps. “Just because I think Superman’s cute, like every other person with eyes and an attraction to men—”

“There is literally no way, and I do mean none, that you can finish that sentence without it sounding fucking weird.”

Raven muffles a snort as Taylor and Peter start bickering playfully. They sound like siblings. She wonders if the two are related, but quickly discards the thought. It doesn’t seem right.

For that matter, neither do the emotions she can feel under the surface of Peter’s facade. Raven furrows her brows and chances a glance at the acrobat’s face. He’s smiling. But she perceives no happiness from him, only burgeoning panic and frustration.

The heroine takes a deep breath, pushing aside her curiosity. She shouldn’t be snooping; Peter’s emotions aren’t her business, no matter how odd they are. It’s not like they’ll ever see him again.

Regardless, her grip on Garfield’s hand tightens. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Petroica phoenicea_ really is a species of robin! I cannot make this stuff up.
> 
> I am aware that Peter is Jason's middle name, but honestly, I thought using it as an alias was funny. Other particulars of Dick's false identity will come up in a later chapter.


	3. Falling in Reverse - It's Over When It's Over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Act I - The Week (Wednesday)
> 
> Dick finds himself right in the middle of a fight, because _lord forbid_ the universe gives him a break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! One note before we begin— though I doubt it will be relevant in this fic, please note that Jinx is no longer with the Hive and that Kid Flash had nothing to do with her decision to leave.

_I gotta remind myself that my mind is strong, so I won't lose my head._

Wednesday morning starts with a bang (several bangs, really), as Taylor tries her best to knock down Dick's door.

After a mad scramble for the oversized sunglasses under his pillow, he tumbles out of bed. He rips open the door with his hair askew, a line of drool on his cheek, and the glasses sitting crookedly on his nose.

“What’s happening? Are you okay?”

Taylor beams at Dick, apparently unaware of how much she had scared him. “Some of the other performers and I wanted to explore a little! Will you come with us?”

Dick is on the verge of offering her an implausible excuse and wallowing in his sadness for the rest of the day. But Taylor looks so excited, and if he turns her down, Lexi will start nagging him about socializing for the _five-billionth fucking time…_ which he’d rather avoid. 

“Fine,” he sighs. “Give me ten minutes to get ready.”

“Okay!” She chirps. 

Dick shuts the door in her face, feeling oddly like he’s just lost a fight.

Shrugging the feeling off, he throws on a semi-competent outfit. It’s nothing fancy, just joggers and an oversized black T-shirt, but at least he looks human in them. He scrubs the drool off his cheek as he brushes his teeth. Spitting the foam into a cup, he makes sure his sunglasses are in place and leaves.

Taylor is waiting a good twenty feet away. She’s talking to Mari (a telekinetic who uses her powers to play ridiculous tricks with knives) and Louie (a firebreather). They all look up when he approaches.

“Oh... hey, Peter,” Mari stammers. She sounds surprised, likely because Dick staunchly avoids interacting with people other than Lexi and Taylor.

“Hey,” he says.

“Small talk later, explore now! It's gonna be so fun!” Taylor cheers, running towards the exit. Dick follows her, as do the others.

As they travel deeper into the city, Dick chews his lip, wondering what his persona of ‘Peter’ is supposed to look like. It had been Lexi who had given Dick the name, way back when they had first met and he’d completely freaked out after revealing his identity. From Peter came _Petroica,_ which had the added (and ironic) benefit of being a species of robin.

The notion makes him snort. It seems like he’s still that broken child who had witnessed his parents’ murder and decided he’d have to fight in their honor. It’s absurd. He’s no longer a high-flying Robin, daring death to catch him. He’s something else, something he can’t yet define.

Dimly, Dick registers that he’s drifting away from Taylor and her friends, but it seems like a minor concern when compared to his internal turmoil.

He's deep into a maze of alleys when he realizes he’s lost all the other performers. He pauses by a dumpster, wondering if he should try to retrace his steps and find them. 

But the brick walls are pressing closer, and his morbid curiosity is welling up.

With a harsh sigh, Dick starts to wander around the city, taking note of that which has changed and that which has stayed the same. Things seem to be leaning heavily toward the former, which isn’t a surprise. Hero fights cause a lot of damage.

Dick wraps his arms around himself, exhaling shakily. When Lexi had told him they were stopping in Jump, he’d frozen at the thought, unwilling to return to the site of his worst… 

Experience? Nightmare? Mistake? Dick’s worst _everything_ had happened in Jump. In fact, the onslaught of memories he’d relived upon arrival had caused him to have a full-blown panic attack. For a wild moment, he’d legitimately considered leaving the circus and going on the run again.

_And then I remembered that I have nowhere to run to._

The somber thought is interrupted by an explosion. Instinctively, Dick throws himself to the right, rolls across the ground, and comes up in a defensive stance. 

He'd moved in the nick of time— the spot where he’d just been standing is charred black.

“What the fuck,” Dick whispers, whirling on the source of the attack.

The street before him has been consumed in a fight between the Teen Titans and a mismatched group of villains. The blast that had nearly hit him had been created by a hulking robot— one of several. They look like shoddier versions of Toymaker’s bots, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous.

"Go out and explore Jump City, she said," the acrobat mutters under his breath, eyes still fixed on the scene. "It'll be fun, she said."

He should've known better. This godforsaken town has never been a normal place. The only solace he has is that it's not Gotham… 

…so honestly, the bar is at the ground.

Another beam soars towards him. Dick cartwheels out of the way and searches for an escape route. Unfortunately, there’s no opening to be found; one of the villains can duplicate himself, and his copies are prowling around, cackling maniacally.

Surprisingly, the Titans don’t seem too concerned by this. Dick is close enough to hear Cyborg taunting, "Man, the five of you should give it a rest! Your former leader thinks so too!"

A young boy with mechanical spider legs attached to his back— undoubtedly the one controlling the robots— lets out an inarticulate shriek of rage and tosses the mechanical marvel through a building. The wild swing forces the clones to scatter, giving Dick the opportunity he’s been waiting for. He suppresses his reflexive urge to wince in sympathy and takes two steps toward freedom. 

Then his gaze lands on a little girl. One of the robots is looming over her, poised to strike. 

And all of the Titans are occupied.

Dick is no hero. Dick wants _nothing to do_ with heroes.

But he won't let a child die.

He dives, grabbing the little girl and rolling away just as the robot attacks. She screams. The sound draws Raven's attention, and she blanches at the sight of two civilians in the thick of a superpowered battle.

"Take her!" Dick shouts, tossing the child out of firing range. She's promptly enveloped in a black bubble. Satisfied at his good deed of the day, Dick books it.

Unfortunately, the acrobat doesn’t get very far. The robot plucks him off the ground and crushes him against its unyielding chest. He bites back a scream of pain as his damaged ribcage creaks under the pressure.

 _Goddamn it,_ he thinks, fighting for air. _That's what I get for trying to help._

"Let him go!" Starfire demands, her hands and eyes glowing with radioactive green light.

"Nah!" Shouts a group of clones.

Dick wiggles in his captor’s grasp and determines that he can escape. But first, he needs one of the Titans to shoot at him.

"Cyborg, fire at this thing!" He wheezes.

"What? I could kill you!" The hero replies, grappling with what must be the other team’s heavy hitter.

"You won't. Just do it!"

A whine is the only warning he gets before the blast of a sonic cannon makes contact with the robot's shoulder. Its grip slackens, and Dick presses his palms against its arm, launching himself upwards. He flips onto the robot’s metallic head, rips the plating open, and pulls out a fistful of random wires. 

It crumples to the asphalt, and Dick breathes freely once again.

"Hey! That snot-nosed brat broke my toy!" The young villain yells. 

He sounds like a five-year-old. Dick is not impressed.

A bolt of green energy slams into the boy, knocking him unconscious. Black magic commanded by Raven ensconces the other robots and shatters them. Further down the street, Beast Boy morphs into a T-Rex and slaps the other villains with his tail, sending them flying.

They don't get back up.

"Well, that sure was something," Cyborg huffs. "Hey, you’re Peter, right? From the circus? Are you okay?"

 _This isn't even remotely close to the worst thing I've been through,_ Dick thinks. He tactfully refrains from saying this, replying,

"Yes, and I'm fine. Is that little girl alright?"

"Safe and sound," Raven replies, floating down to their level. "That was some quick thinking on your part. Nice job."

"It was very heroic!" Starfire chimes in. She beams at him, swooping close as if she wants to give him a hug.

Dick takes a step back and snaps, "I’m no hero." 

Only after he finishes the sentence does he realize that his tone was too venomous for a regular statement.

"I mean," he adds, trying to salvage the situation, "I'm just an ordinary guy. I couldn't handle being smashed through walls or anything."

Raven hums. "I don't think it's superpowers that make a hero. It has to do with the heart."

 _I've killed people. What does_ that _say about my heart?_

"Maybe," Dick says. "I… I'm gonna go. Uh, bye."

He turns on his heel and walks off, hoping that his departure doesn't look too much like an escape.

* * *

“Um,” says Garfield. “Does anyone think that was a little weird?”

With a frown, Raven sifts through the jumbled imprint she’d gotten off Peter. She feels hatred, directed both inwards and at someone else, and sees a dizzying blur of colors— red, yellow, and green fading to orange, black, and silver. But she has no clue what it means.

“Very weird,” she echoes.

* * *

As luck would have it, shortly after leaving the Titans, Dick runs directly into Taylor.

“Peter!” She gasps, relief plain in her voice. “You’re okay!”

“Yeah, I’m… okay. Sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

Taylor huffs. “But you really fucking did, dude! Anything could’ve happened to you!”

Dick shrinks into himself, rattled not by her volume, but by the sudden reminder that people care about him. He hasn’t felt like that for… well, long enough that three years with the circus haven’t healed his wounds.

“Whoa, don’t give me that kicked puppy look. I’m just glad you’re alright,” Taylor says, her tone softening. “Let’s get back to the others.”

Uncrossing his arms and forcing himself to stand up straight, the acrobat takes a deep breath. He’s fine. Everything is fine. Sure, he flinches when people try to touch him, and he can’t stand the sound of certain words anymore, and the sight of his reflection makes nausea bubble in his stomach, but Dick is fucking **fine.**

“Sure. Lead the way.” 

He follows her down a road he doesn’t recognize, thinking, _It’s only two weeks. I can handle two weeks. Besides, it’s not like it was back then… right?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dick's use of sunglasses as a disguise is taken from Young Justice (and Trouble in Tokyo, I suppose).


	4. Egypt Central - White Rabbit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Act I - The Week (Thursday)
> 
> In which there is chaos at the circus, and Taylor ropes Dick into dinner with the Titans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! A quick world-building note— the Titans formed the year after Dick got the hell out of Dodge.

_You’re pulling us— dragging us— down this dead-end road._

When Thursday arrives, Raven wakes slowly. The dream she’d been in, which hadn’t felt like one of hers, slips through her fingers as she sits up.

She shudders. Apparently, she’s still shaking off the aftereffects of Peter’s emotions. They’re the strongest she’s ever felt, and she lives with intensely dramatic people like Starfire and Garfield. 

That implies something about him. She's just not sure what.

With a huff, Raven floats to the bathroom and gets ready for the day. The minute she finishes brushing her teeth, the Titan alarm rings. The demoness pulls her hood over her head and rushes to the living room. The others hurry in a beat after her.

“What is happening?” Starfire asks.

Cyborg pulls up a camera feed and displays it on the monitor. “Someone's attacking Cirque du Solstice!”

"Who?"

They get their answer when a blue-skinned man waltzes onto the screen, twirling a wand between his fingers.

"Consider this a job interview!" He shouts. "I should be part of the act!"

"Mumbo," Raven spits, rage flashing through her. “I’ve hated that guy ever since he turned me into a rabbit. Let’s get him.”  
  
“At least you got to be an animal! I was a fucking lamp!” Garfield complains as they head for the scene of the crime.

The circus is in absolute chaos when they arrive. Terrified performers are running amok, and the air is saturated with the feel of artificial magic. 

Raven bats teal sparks out of the air, growling, “Where is he?”

“I shall search the sky. Cyborg can use his scanners to search the ground,” Starfire says. She shoots upward and vanishes into the smoke.

“Come on, BB,” Cyborg says. Garfield shifts into a cheetah and follows him toward the heart of the event. The big top they’re aiming for is alight with different colors. If Mumbo is anywhere, he’s there.

Too bad getting from Point A to Point B isn't as straightforward as it looks. Enchanted items attack them with every step they take, and Raven continually has to save people who have been cursed into bunnies. 

(After all, being trapped in animal form is no fun if you aren't Garfield.)

Starfire takes a hard hit and crashes to the ground in front of them. 

"Popcorn is not supposed to explode," she complains.

"Yeah, and soda machines aren't supposed to spray acid everywhere," Cyborg retorts. "It's Mumbo's crappy magic screwing with the world."

Raven tosses a sentient hula hoop out of her way and stalks toward the tent. Her team follows, readying themselves for battle.

Mumbo greets them with a cheerful, "Hello, kiddies! Welcome to the greatest magic show in town!"

He flicks his wand and blows a hole through the ceiling.

"This is not great!" Starfire snaps. She flings a starbolt at him and charges, the boys half a step behind her.

 **"Azarath, metrion, zinthos!"** Raven chants. Black energy saturates the earth, and at a twitch of her fingers, it rises and surges toward Mumbo.

The magician waves his wand, dispelling half her power. A solitary rock slips through his guard and clips his temple. 

"That was quite cruel! Don't you care about my beautiful, money-making face?"

"I definitely don't!"

At her declaration, the Titans circle around the villain. Garfield paws the ground, snarling. Starfire and Cyborg's hands hum with energy.

“Give it up, Mumbo!” Raven warns. “You’re surrounded!”

Mumbo looks from Titan to Titan. A mocking grin spreads across his face. “Really? But there’s no one above me!”

“Think again,” someone replies.

A pink blur streaks down from the rafters and cannonballs into Mumbo. The magician shrieks as he’s slammed into the ground. Seconds after his face makes contact with the dirt, a boy in red appears out of nowhere, snatches the wand that had flown from the man’s fingers, and breaks it in half.

Seizing her chance, Raven snaps her fingers, and a sleep spell knocks the magician unconscious.

The other Titans glance toward the impromptu additions to their team. 

Taylor clambers off of Mumbo, laughing nervously. “Well, that was terrifying, and I never wanna do it again!”

Peter simply dusts off his costume, looking more inconvenienced than anything. “Hopefully, you won’t have to. And what are you looking at?” He asks the gawking heroes. “He poofed onto the scene when we were in the middle of a dangerous stunt! We could’ve died because of this idiot!”

“Well, yeah,” Garfield says slowly, reassuming his human form. “But the normal reaction to being attacked isn’t to go all Black Widow on somebody. This is also, like, the second time you’ve done that.”

“Um, what?” Taylor says. She turns an accusing gaze on Peter, who ignores it.

“Didn't know defending myself was a bad thing.”

“I think Beast Boy means that this isn’t the only time we’ve seen you stay behind to fight a villain,” Raven elaborates. “You did notice that everyone else ran away, didn’t you?”

Peter rolls his eyes. “Yesterday, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And this is our home. What were Taylor and I supposed to do, let it burn to the ground?”

“No, of course not! But have you ever considered you were in the _right_ place at the _right_ time?” Cyborg argues.

“Don’t start with that hero stuff again,” Peter groans. “Damn it, I’m outta here. Taylor and I have to find Lexi and figure out what we’re gonna do about—” here he gestures at the wreckage around them— “all this.”

Starfire zips toward him and puts a hand on his shoulder, saying, “Wait! We wish to continue speaking to you!”

The acrobat goes rigid under her touch. Starfire notices and jerks away, regret in her eyes.

“What else do you want?” He grumbles.

“Don’t be rude!” Taylor hisses. Despite the admonishment, she steps in front of Peter, angling her body in a way that ensures the heroes won’t be able to get near him again.

Thinking fast, Raven says, “What if we buy you both dinner? As a thank you, and as a…”

“Peace offering!” Garfield finishes, for once on her wavelength. She shoots her boyfriend a grateful smile and turns to the acrobats.

“So, what do you say?”

For a moment, she thinks Peter will refuse and tell them to go to hell. Then he glances at Taylor— who looks like she’s about to vibrate out of her skin with excitement— and relents, saying,

“I guess we can come. Where and when do you wanna meet?”  
  
“The best pizza joint in town: Pizza Corner!” Cyborg says. “We’ll see you at 7 sharp. Wear your best costumes!”

For a split second, the flirty, confident boy they’d seen at the performance makes an appearance. “I dunno, I don’t think you could handle it.”

“Be still, my beating heart,” Garfield says theatrically, eyes following Peter and Taylor out the “door.”

“Once again,” Raven asks, _“why_ are we together?”

* * *

Slipping out of his trailer and casting furtive glances around the area, Dick creeps toward the trailer Taylor shares with one of the firebreathers. Lexi is on the warpath, considering that they have to waste time and money rebuilding everything destroyed by that wizard, and he doesn’t want to see her right now.

He also doesn’t know why the fuck he let Taylor sucker him into getting dinner with a hero team. Apparently, Dick is incapable of making good decisions. _It might just be the air in this city,_ he thinks bitterly. _I wasn’t like this back in Gotham…_

Well. He shouldn’t dwell on it. He hasn’t been that person in a long time.

Dick raises his hand to knock on the door. Taylor opens it before he has the chance.

“Get in here,” she says, ushering him inside. “Aura is off with Mari. She won’t be back for ages.”

Dick quirks an eyebrow as he steps into the room. “What’s going on with those two? I thought you and Aura were a thing.”

“I don’t know and I’m trying not to care,” Taylor retorts. “I’d like to think about literally anything else, so tell me— purple or red?”

She holds up two sweaters.

“Purple,” Dick says. “Red’s not really your color.”

“You’re right...”

Dick turns away while Taylor changes and entertains himself by staring at the collage she's hung above her bed. There are aproximately fifty photos of her with her sisters and friends there. Dick can’t help but wonder why she’s here, at the circus, instead of at home with the people she loves.

(He also finds himself wondering how his family is doing, especially after Jason's d…) 

“I’m done. Let’s go,” Taylor announces. She bounces outside and he follows, narrowly avoiding getting smacked in the face with her long braid as he does.

The acrobat plugs the directions into her phone, and they start walking. Minutes tick by in silence, but Dick’s sure it won’t stay quiet for long— Taylor very clearly wants to ask a question.

“What were the Titans talking about earlier? About you _fighting_ a villain?” 

_There it is._ Dick sighs, trying to figure out the best way to word his answer.

“When I got separated from you guys, I wandered into a fight. _Accidentally._ There was a little girl in the middle of it, and I got her to safety. That’s it, I swear.”

“How do you get yourself into these situations?” Taylor says in disbelief. “And why don’t you sound scared? When you threw me at that freaky magician, I nearly shit myself!”

“I’m not exactly the picture of mental health,” Dick says dryly. “You _should’ve_ been scared. Also, we’re here. Game face on.”

He pulls open the door of the pizza parlor and readies himself to interact with the assembled Titans.

“Friends Peter and Taylor, you have made it!” Starfire chirps, waving them over to the team’s table. Dick gives her a hesitant smile and takes a seat. Taylor settles in beside him, plastering a grin on her face.

“Hey! This is the first time I’ve seen you guys out of costume!” She chirps at the heroes. “It’s a little weird, if I’m being honest.”

“Oh, we have our costumes on underneath these,” Beast Boy informs him. “Well, except Cyborg, ‘cause… he is his costume, so it’s like… just there.”

“Quit while you’re ahead, BB,” Cyborg shakes his head. “Anyway, Peter, how’s the circus doing?”

“Our ringmaster is beyond pissed. We’re gonna have to stay here an extra couple of days while everything is rebuilt.”

Raven furrows her brows. “We can help with the repairs. It’s only fair.”

“You don’t have to,” Dick demurs. “We’re used to tearing everything down and putting it back up. It’s just, well, some of our stuff tries to incinerate us now.”

(Raven and Cyborg exchange a glance and have a full conversation without words.

**_Are we gonna ignore him and go fix everything?_ **

**Of course.** )

“Mumbo is such an asshole,” mutters Beast Boy, unaware of his teammates' scheming. “Sorry about getting there so late.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Taylor says. “Things happen. Now, what kind of pizza do you guys want?”

The innocuous question triggers a long-standing feud between Beast Boy and the other Titans. From what Dick manages to gather, it’s because the former is a vegetarian and the latter are not. He sits back in his seat and watches the scuffle play out, a small smile on his face. These heroes sort of remind him of his old team. It's sweet.

Bittersweet.

The team settles the argument by getting a large pizza, half of it cheese and half topped with meat. Raven, Taylor, and Dick get one slice each while the other three teens fight over the remainder.

"Is it always like this?" Taylor whispers to the dark-haired girl.

"Worse. Once, Cyborg got infected with a virus, and he went around eating stop signs and parking meters."

"Aw, Rae, why you gotta expose me like that?" Cyborg whines.

"Because you made us chase you around the city for _a whole day."_

"But Beast Boy was to blame," Starfire says slyly. "He caused it all because of a video game."

"Hey, Gizmo and I fixed everything!"

The team laughs at the shapeshifter as they pay and leave the restaurant. Still snickering, Dick says, "Thanks, guys. Try to stay out of trouble."

"I don't look for trouble; trouble looks for me!" Beast Boy quotes. He waves and heads off with Raven and Cyborg in tow. 

Starfire lingers, a slightly downcast expression on her face.

"Uh, is something wrong?" Dick asks. Taylor comes closer, her face set in a way that suggests she’s willing to fight the heroine on his behalf.

"I wish to apologize for grabbing you earlier. I am a very enthusiastic person, and sometimes, I forget that not everyone likes to be touched," the alien says solemnly.

Dick has to hide a wince. _She noticed that? Damn. That means the others probably did too._ Out loud, he says, "It's okay. You didn't mean any harm."

"Still, I should be more careful…"

"The fact that you apologized means a lot, Starfire. Seriously, don't worry about it." _It's not your fault I'm a fucking mess._

(He used to love being hugged.)

"As you wish. Good night, Peter." Starfire smiles and soars into the sky.

Dick waves at her disappearing form. Once she's gone, he lowers his hand, thinking, _That could’ve gone worse. But I can’t get comfortable. Not around them._

He side-eyes Taylor. _Not around anyone, honestly._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact! Since this is one of the earliest chapters, it's one of the few that has weathered multiple rounds of editing. It was not until the 7th round that I realized one of the lines in the pizza parlor scene said "Raven and **Robin**."
> 
> The line "I don't look for trouble; trouble looks for me!" is paraphrased from Trouble by Neon Jungle.


	5. Of Monsters and Men - Little Talks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Act I - The Week (Friday)
> 
> Dick has a terrible, horrible, no-good, very Bad Day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Dick is on the verge of a panic attack for most of the chapter, and he engages in rather reckless behavior because of it.

_There’s an old voice in my head that’s holding me back._

On Friday, Dick wakes up with a migraine, and that’s how he knows it’s going to be a Bad Day.

Bad Days are rarer now than they were when he first came to Cirque du Solstice, but that means they hit harder than they used to. Dick presses the heels of his palms into his eyes. His heart flutters erratically, and he feels out of place in his own skin, like it’s stretched too tight over his bones.

 _Get up,_ he tells himself. _You can’t sit here and cry, no matter how much you want to._

Dick drags his aching body out of bed and gets ready. He takes two Excedrin with a protein bar, resolutely avoiding the mirror as he does.

Then he slips his sunglasses on and steps into the light. 

He’s greeted by the sight of the Teen Titans, who are scurrying around and attempting to fix the damages Mumbo dealt.

Raven breaks curses while Cyborg and Starfire handle the heavy lifting. In the meantime, Beast Boy alternates between finding lost items and entertaining the performers with his shapeshifting.

"This is good press," Lexi comments. Dick nearly leaps three feet in the air— _where the hell did she come from?_ But she doesn’t seem to notice his distress, continuing, "I'm sure we'll draw bigger crowds after today."

Taking a deep breath and trying his best to seem nonchalant, Dick inclines a shoulder. "It's a welcome side effect."

"A side effect of what?"

"They're good people. They want to do good things," the acrobat explains. "So they're helping. Any benefits we reap— other than the obvious— are just a bonus."

"You're a weird kid, Petroica."

Dick has several potential responses to that statement, one being, _I haven't been a kid in a very long time._ Instead of making everything depressing, he says, "How come?"

“Where should I start? When you first came to us, you were beaten half to death, and you still outperformed all the other acrobats. You barely slept or ate for two months. Then you chilled out, but you obviously didn’t trust us. You still don’t.”

He fights his way out of the tide of memories to protest, “I do.”

The ringmaster levels him with a capital-L Look. “For fuck’s sake, Dick. I’m the only one who knows your first name, and I _still_ don’t know your last name.”

Ah. When he’d joined the Solstice, he’d just escaped an unimaginable hell. He hadn’t been thinking clearly (as evidenced by his complete lack of judgment in regards to his identity). And he’s spent the years since trying to bury his past, so it genuinely hadn’t occurred to him to tell her. 

The thought of offering up another part of himself makes anxiety congeal in his throat. But for all her faults, Lexi has been kind to him. Dick can give her this. 

"Grayson," he says.

"What?"

"My last name. It's Grayson."

_Please don’t ask about Bruce. Please._

But Lexi is a ringmaster, and her mind goes somewhere else entirely. "Like the Flying Graysons? The world’s greatest trapeze artists?"

Though it’s been years since that fateful night in Gotham, the mention of John and Mary Grayson sends pain shooting through the remnants of Dick’s heart. The acrobat pushes it down, pasting an indifferent expression over his face.

"Yeah. Why do you think I'm so good at it?"

"Kid, this just gives me more questions."

Shrugging, Dick spins on his heel and goes to get ready for practice. "You won't get more answers."

"You’re not weird— you’re a brat!" Lexi laughs.

Despite it being a Bad Day, Dick finds it in him to grin.

-

The tent has been repaired, and the show is on. Dick perches in the rafters. As he surveys the crowd, he thinks, _Lexi was right. There_ are _more people than usual._

Not that it matters to him. Dick flies for himself— he’s no longer the child who lives on applause. Besides, his skin is still crawling, and his heart feels like it’s about to fly out of his chest. As Taylor spins into a double somersault, Dick closes his eyes and tries to control his breathing.

He immediately regrets his decision.

The instant his eyelids fall shut, the acrobat wobbles and nearly falls from his perch. The air abruptly vacates his lungs as his palms slam on the wooden beam’s rough surface.

_Shit. I shouldn’t be performing._

But it’s too late now. Through the dull roaring in his ears, Dick hears Lexi say his cue. 

So he vaults into his act. Said show is seven minutes of stunts that defy both gravity and reason. Each of those moments lingers for an eternity when Dick is suspended above the ground and seeking the embrace of the sky.

Just like his parents.

 _Three, two, one, and disengage…_

Dick lets go of the trapeze and flips, his legs cutting up and over his head. He bounces out of the net and lands neatly on the floor. The impact reverberates through his bones, but it isn’t as painful as it should be. He’s always been a tad more durable than the average human.

(That had been tested, when Dick was with _Him._ )

He straightens and bows. The deafening force of cheers barrels into him.

“Goodnight, Jump City!” Dick calls, breathless with exertion. “See you again tomorrow!”

He turns and joins the line of performers leaving the tent. Many of them are rubbing strained wrists and shoulders, and Mari is trying to pretend that she isn’t bleeding from a poorly caught knife. Such is the life of a circus act, he supposes.

“Good job, Peter! You looked like a real phoenix tonight.” Taylor says. She reaches out to ruffle his hair, telegraphing the movement so he has enough time to dodge.

Normally, Dick would let Taylor touch him. But if he lets her hand connect right now, he’ll scream. Shying away from her, he stammers, “Thanks. You did well, too.”

On that awkward note, Dick flees. The night air is cool and welcoming, the way it’s always felt to him. He strays further from the light as time trickles by, but he doesn’t realize just how far he’s drifted until he ends up near the exit.

“Are you leaving, too?” Raven says, materializing beside him. 

Dick bites back a yelp. This is the second goddamn time he’s been caught off guard today. 

(It’s probably payback for all the thugs he’d terrorized with _his_ disappearing acts.)

“No, I’m just… oh, never mind. Where did you come from?” The acrobat mumbles. It’s much better than the alternative questions: _Why are_ you _here?_ and _You know I could’ve killed you, right?_

“I can go anywhere with the shadows. It’s part of my powers.”

“That’s cool. So… where’s the rest of your team?”

“Around. Beast Boy probably got distracted by something and roped the others in with him,” Raven sighs. 

Dick side-eyes her. “You two seem pretty different. How’d you end up together?”

“I guess it happened gradually. He’s sweet, you know. He always tries to make me smile, even though his jokes suck.”

Amused by the thought, Dick opens his mouth to wish her the best (and make an excuse to escape). He’s interrupted by the arrival of two spectators.

“Hi, Raven!” One of them greets shyly. “You’re my favorite Titan. Um, if it’s not too much trouble, could I have an autograph?”

Raven looks surprised and a little touched. As she signs the boy’s notebook, his companion turns to Dick.

“Oh, you’re part of the circus!” She says. “I really liked the move you did at the end, even though it looked kinda dangerous.”

“It’s not, as long as you practice,” Dick shrugs. “But I’ve been doing this since I was a kid, so maybe my view is a bit… skewed.”

"Since you were a kid? Wow, kudos to you!”

At that, she clasps her hands around one of his. 

The contact makes something in Dick’s mind short-circuit, and the thin thread of self-control he’s been clinging to snaps. He extricates herself from the girl’s grasp, suppresses his instinct to hit her, and chokes out,

"Sorry, I have to go.”

And then Dick bolts, leaving Raven and the confused couple behind him.

* * *

Raven stares at Peter's retreating back, a shock of foreign emotions running through her. 

She feels disgust, anger, and…

pure,

unadulterated,

**terror.**

The heroine yanks herself out of her daze and starts running.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Robin's ridiculous pain tolerance is sponsored by every episode of Teen Titans. Seriously, this kid punches walking concrete, climbs the equivalent of Mt. Everest to fight secretive martial artists, battles teams comprised of metahumans (and _wins_ ), and the only serious injury I can recall him getting is a broken arm (in Fractured). How?


	6. Lil Wayne, et al. - Scared of the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Act I - The Week (Saturday)
> 
> Dick's version of relaxation involves dwelling on bad memories. Meanwhile, Garfield and Raven ponder the strange turn their lives have taken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! This chapter is short, but it's important. For... reasons.

_Why would a star ever be afraid of the dark?_

Dick wakes on a sunny Saturday afternoon, his limbs heavy with exhaustion and his head pounding. He sits up, scrubs dried tears off his cheeks, and exhales quietly.

Another panic attack. Great. He loves those. 

The fact that he'd had one isn't the worst part, though. No, the worst part is that he'd broken down in front of _other people,_ one of whom was a hero. Dick has no idea how he's going to justify his actions. 

_Oh, sorry— I just can’t stand being touched by people I don’t trust. It’s a side effect of living with a mercenary who constantly beat the shit out of me, haha!_

Yeah, right. But there's no use dwelling on it. It's not like Dick is capable of time travel or memory erasure. He has to live with this mistake, the way he endures all the others.

So Dick hauls himself off the sofa, thanks his old mentor for having safehouses scattered across the country, and enters the bathroom. He tries to avoid the mirror as he goes about his business, but his eyes inevitably stray to the glass, and he flinches.

Fuck. He’s so tired of this. He’s tired of the smallest things setting him off. He’s tired of never getting enough air. He’s tired of inconveniencing everyone around him.

He wants to be normal, damn it. 

Steeling himself, the former hero locks eyes with his reflection. His sallow skin, the shadows under his eyes, the flat, stressed line of his mouth… none of these details paint a pretty picture.

Dick remembers Babydoll shooting up the funhouse. He remembers Calendar Girl screaming as she was unmasked, begging the heroes not to look, _don’t look, please._ Back then, he had pitied them. 

Now, he’s in their place.

Dick leaves the bathroom with bitterness lodged in his throat.

-

He spends the next hour haunting the apartment like a ghost, flitting from room to room without any particular goal. As he walks, though, he realizes that the safehouse looks… used. Someone has been here within the last two months.

Dick narrows his eyes. He would've heard if his former mentor was in town. Both his personas attract too much attention to go unnoticed. 

_But he's still in Gotham, so who the hell has been living here?_

Dick doesn't like the thought of the apartment being compromised. He quickly retraces his steps, erasing all evidence of his presence, and leaves. He sticks to the shadows as best as he can on his way back to the circus.

Lexi pounces on him the second he's on Solstice grounds. "Kid, where the hell have you been?! We had to go through a show without you!"

"Sorry," Dick says, untangling himself from the ringmaster's grasp. "Something came up."

Translation: _I freaked out and shut down again._

Lexi's expression shifts from angry to concerned. This isn't the first time Dick has lost it, and she's clearly curious about what happened, but she doesn't ask.

"Take a night off," she says gently.

"I'm sorry," Dick repeats, hurrying off to his trailer. To his eternal gratitude, no one else interrupts him. He shuts his door and changes out of the costume he'd been wearing. The red fabric pools into a pile on the floor.

It looks a bit too much like blood for his scattered mind, so he kicks it under a chair and takes a seat on his worn mattress.

As time trickles by, memories threaten to pull him under. Memories of his life with Haly's Circus, memories of his stint under Batman, memories of his "apprenticeship…"

He's a hopeless masochist, so he lets himself drown.

-

The sound of a trapeze wire snapping echoes in his mind—

—he swears an oath of justice; he promises to serve—

—he argues with Batman, shouting even though the exertion sends pain lancing through his injured shoulder—

—he storms out of Wayne Manor, determined to prove himself. He's thirteen, not helpless—

—and just like he'd been warned, he ended up in the hands of the devil.

* * *

Raven gives up on reading after the fourth time she looks at a page without absorbing anything. It's rare for her to be so distracted, but she's worried about Peter.

She doesn't have a solid reason to be. It’s not like they’re friends— hell, the guy _unnerves_ her. Still, she knows more than she should, and none of that knowledge is good.

So Raven worries. It gets to the point where Garfield (who had been busy gaming with Cyborg) notices. His presence brushes against her mind, inquisitive, and she allows him to open their link.

What's wrong, Rae? 

**Worried.**

I can tell. What are you worried about? 

Raven hesitates. Sharing the imprint would be a gross breach of privacy, and besides, it really isn't any of their business. But she’s liable to explode if she doesn’t get this off her chest.

**I think something bad happened to Peter. I didn't get anything specific, but… feel this.**

She lets the echo of Peter’s fear flow through her and into Garfield. Her boyfriend’s shock floods their link, ice-cold like the bottle of Svedka Cyborg has been hiding in the freezer.

That felt awful. Is that why you were late last night? 

**I was looking for him. He was going to have a panic attack. But I didn't… I couldn't find him.** Raven bites her lip, ashamed at how quickly she'd lost track of the acrobat. His emotions should have been easy for her to follow.

You can't find someone who doesn't want to be found. 

**Unfortunately. Should we do something about it?**

We can't change the past. She feels him pause the game and walk to the window, where he stares at the cars rushing by.  You and I both know that. 

**…what do I say if we see him again?**

Nothing. He probably won't want the reminder, anyway. 

She sighs. **And no one is happy to learn that I can get into their heads.**

I dunno, Garfield thinks, grinning impishly.  I like having you in mine. 

**You are an outlier and should not be counted.**

You love this outlier. 

**That I do. I don't know when you got so wise, though.**

He shrugs.  We all grow up. Some of us just do it quicker than others. 

Raven remembers being ten years old and learning that she was due to destroy the world in a decade. She thinks about tamping down her emotions and trying to make a difference, regardless of her cursed destiny.

**I guess so.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the title is formatted like an academic paper citation. There's, like, five people on Scared of the Dark.
> 
> In this chapter, Dick mentions Babydoll and Calendar Girl, two villains from Batman: The Animated Series. I don't recall if he was present for their arrests (I think Babs was there for Calendar Girl?), but if not, we'll just have to pretend.
> 
> I wonder who was in the safehouse. I really do.


	7. The Weeknd & Kendrick Lamar - Pray For Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Act I - The Week (Sunday)
> 
> Dick's time with the circus is over. 
> 
> But his time as a hero has only just begun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: This chapter contains the death of a minor character.

_Who needs a hero?_

It's a bright Sunday morning, and the city is being attacked by a villain… again.

And because Dick cannot have a single moment of peace, he's caught in the thick of it. 

Again.

He sighs, sidestepping the chunk of asphalt that comes flying at him. Why is there a sentient pile of concrete terrorizing downtown Jump? Why can’t he go on a simple coffee run in peace? Why is he so goddamn tired? He doesn't have the answers to these questions, and he's not about to look for them.

The Titans are already on the scene, trying to corral the villain. It's going well for them. No one's gotten hurt yet—

Oops. Dick spoke too soon.

The concrete man hits Starfire with his hand, sending her whizzing through the air like a baseball. She smashes into the building next to Dick and falls to the ground.

"Oh, fuck," the acrobat hisses, rushing to her side. She's unconscious. A gash on her head stains the sidewalk with oddly tinted blood, and her arm is bent at an unnatural angle. 

In short, she's not getting up any time soon, and without one of their fliers, the Titans' strategy starts to fall apart.

 _Should I help?_ Dick wonders, hesitating. He certainly doesn't have to. He's not part of the team, and he’s no fucking hero.

But damn it, he can't stand seeing people suffer. That's why he'd saved that kid. That's why he'd told Taylor they had to fight that two-bit magician.

That's why he has to get up once more.

Making his choice, the acrobat grabs a pipe that Raven had torn out of the ground and stands. It's not weighted correctly, the way his bo staff was. But it'll do.

Jumping at the concrete man, Dick shouts, "Batter up!" and hits him across the face with the pipe. He stumbles back, howling in pain. Oh, so he can feel! That's unfortunate, because Dick's gonna kick his ass.

"What are you doing?" Raven asks, blinking at him.

"Starfire is down. So I'm subbing in," Dick says. "Congrats. You've temporarily converted me to heroism."

"You could make a religion out of that!" Beast Boy crows. Then he turns into a gorilla and throws a car at the villain. He swats it aside, but Dick is there to pick up the slack.

Using the pipe as leverage, the acrobat swings his leg out in a kick that connects solidly with the man's chest. It hurts, but Dick doesn't care. He's punched in a metal chestplate with his bare hands. This is nothing.

Cyborg runs past him, firing his cannon. "We're gonna drag your ass right back to jail, Cinderblock!"

The villain (Cinderblock, apparently) does not like that threat. He rips a lamppost out of the sidewalk and flings it at Cyborg. Raven catches it with her powers and turns the attack against their opponent.

Like quicksilver, Dick leaps at him, ramming his makeshift weapon into Cinderblock's throat, his solar plexus, and his left kneecap in quick succession. The man staggers backwards, winded, and Beast Boy soars above him. He shifts from eagle to woolly mammoth in the span of a few seconds, and Cinderblock goes down hard under the weight.

"Yeah! Go team!" Cyborg cheers.

Unbidden, a laugh bursts from Dick’s throat. Post-battle adrenaline hums in his veins, and his heart sings along with it. That had almost felt as _right_ as fighting with Batman, Batgirl, and Bluejay, or with the League’s other sidekicks.

"Thank you," Raven says, appearing next to him. "We really do appreciate it."

"Eh, it’s not that big a deal," Dick replies, sobering.

"If you say so," the woman intones. She tilts her head, sizing him up, and asks, "Are you alright, Peter?"

Ah. This is probably about yesterday's meltdown. He plasters a smile on his face, answering, "I will be. Anyway, you guys take care of Starfire. I need to find a Starbucks."

Dick tosses the pipe aside, trying not to mourn the loss of its comforting weight, and flees the scene.

(He isn't aware of the man live-streaming the fight to YouTube, nor does he notice the attention of a certain young woman with blonde hair. She watches him go, a considering expression on her face.

Then, she smirks.

She's fairly sure she's just found something her master has been searching for.)

-

After the final performance of the night, Dick is completely exhausted. He rolls his shoulders, feeling a twinge in the one where he'd once taken a bullet. _Damn. I'll have to ice it._

"Peter,” Taylor calls, startling him. “Lexi wants to see you.”

“About what?” Dick asks warily. Taylor’s expression is concerning, to say the least. He’s not sure he can remember a time where the other acrobat didn’t have a megawatt smile on her face, and now, she looks... upset. _Bereft._

“I don’t know,” she says, and it sounds like a lie. 

Dick doesn’t call her out. He strides toward Lexi’s trailer, the edge of his cape clutched tightly in his hand.

The ringmaster opens the door at the first tap of his fist. "Hey, Petroica. I was just about to come get you."

“Found you first,” Dick says, stepping into the trailer. “What’s going on? Taylor seemed upset.”

“Huh.” Lexi mutters. “She must’ve overheard me talking to Aura… no matter. Dick, I think you should leave the circus.”

Of all the things Dick expected to hear tonight, that wasn't one of them. "I'm sorry, what?"

Lexi's expression does not change. _Oh, fucking fantastic. She’s not joking._

"What did I do?" He asks.

"That's the thing, kiddo," the ringmaster says, pinching the bridge of her nose. "You do a lot of things for the circus. You perform. You help me organize our shows. You bandage our wounds— and I'm not gonna get into why it's fucked up that you're basically a field medic. But you're not happy."

Dick doesn't know how to respond to that. She's not wrong. He _isn't_ happy, but he's been unhappy for so long that he barely remembers how joy feels.

"Rather, you're not happy with us," Lexi continues. As she speaks, she withdraws her phone and turns it to him. She taps the screen, causing a video to begin playing. 

_Oh, fuck,_ Dick thinks, watching in abject horror as video!Dick hits Cinderblock in the knee with a pipe and expertly ducks underneath his retaliating blow. _Someone was live-streaming the fight!_

And they'd taken special care to capture footage of his carefree laughter after the villain’s defeat.

"I have _never_ seen you laugh like that, and I've known you for three years," Lexi says. "This guy called you a new Teen Titan. And frankly, Dick, I think you should join their team."

"Did you miss the part where I'm not a superhero? I don’t have _powers._ I’m a fucking acrobat from a village in France no one’s ever heard of!"

“Who says you need powers to be a hero?” Lexi asks, raising an eyebrow. “Green Arrow makes it work with that bow of his. And from the looks of that video, you certainly aren’t helpless.”

"You’re just as bad as Cyborg, always saying that I’m ‘in the right place at the right time.’ As if helping out in a few fights makes me a Justice Leaguer! Jesus!"

"A 'few' fights?"

Goddamn, Dick keeps fucking this up. "I may have rescued a kid and set up a trick with Taylor to knock out that asshole that attacked the circus."

"Kid, do you even hear yourself right now?" The ringmaster sighs. "You have a track record of throwing yourself into the fray for the sake of others. Why the hell are you here?"

"I have nowhere else to be!"

"The Titans own a compound," Lexi points out. 

Dick shoots her a vicious glare. She meets his gaze evenly, and the acrobat realizes that he's already lost this fight. Stepping back (towards the door, towards freedom), he snaps, "Alright. Since you're so insistent, I'll remain in the city after you leave, though I _doubt_ I'll join the Titans."

"Please don't think of this as me kicking you out," Lexi says. “I only want the best for you. I want you to work through your issues; I want you to leave the past behind. And I don’t think you can do that with the Solstice.”

“Who are you to decide that for me,” Dick whispers, feeling heat burn behind his eyelids.

“Come here, kid. Come here.”

He lets the ringmaster pull him into a hug and loses the battle with his tears. Despite his overwhelming desire to scream against her shoulder, he doesn’t make a sound. 

That propensity was beaten out of him long ago.

Dick allows himself five minutes of crying before he collects himself and straightens his spine. Lexi is watching him with sadness in her eyes, and Dick suddenly wonders if she wants to do this at all. Maybe it’s not her that wants him gone. Maybe Aura and all the performers he'd never bothered to speak to are pressuring her into excommunicating him.

Not that it matters. Banishment is banishment.

“I’m… I’m just gonna go,” he murmurs.

He slips out of Lexi’s trailer, and she lets him leave.

* * *

_You need a hero._

Dick packs the last of his meager possessions into a suitcase and steps out of his trailer for the last time. Around him, the other performers are tearing everything down. Tents and booths are swiftly deconstructed, flyers are torn off wooden posts, and costumes are neatly bundled into trunks.

He watches it all with a detached sort of sadness. The last time he’d felt this sort of crushing finality was when Haly’s had left Gotham. He’d begged to go with them in every language he knew.

Now that Dick’s older, though, he knows begging won’t get him anywhere.

He sighs and heads towards the exit, his suitcase swinging lazily as he does. He speaks to no one. Similarly, they don’t make an effort to acknowledge his departure, which is… exactly what he’d expected.

Just as Dick reaches the edge of the grounds, he hears someone screaming his alias. Startled, he turns around, only for Taylor to barrel into him.

“Whoa,” he says, dropping the suitcase to place a steadying hand on her shoulder. “What’s going on?”

“Are you serious? You’re freaking leaving, you jerk!” Taylor cries. She leans back and punches him in the arm. The blow was probably meant to hurt, but Dick barely feels it.

“I am,” he says uncertainly.

She sniffles, and a few tears slip down her face. “I’m going to miss you so much. You’re, like, one of my best friends, and you were the best thing that ever happened to the acrobats here.”

“You’re my best friend, too,” Dick replies.

It’s an objective statement. She and Lexi are the only people he’s connected with in the last few years. Beyond that, though, Taylor is _kind._ She’d gone out of her way to include Dick in social gatherings. She'd noticed his aversion to being touched and had often put herself between him and people who invaded his personal space. And she’d always tried her best to make him smile.

Taylor’s great. And he’s suddenly realized that leaving her is going to _hurt._

Before he can open his mouth and say anything stupid or sappy, Taylor withdraws something from her pocket. She takes his hands and presses the objects into them.

Curiously, Dick opens his palms and blanches when he sees that he’s been given a burner phone and a massive wad of cash. 

“Where did you get the money?” He stammers. _There has to be at least seven hundred dollars in here! Did she_ mug _someone?!_

“Well, I broke into Lexi’s trailer to steal it,” Taylor says sheepishly. “But she caught me… and she ended up giving it to me. She told me to buy the phone and give you our numbers. That way, we can stay in touch.”

“I… Taylor, thank you. Thank you so much.”

(Dick hopes she knows he’s not just thanking her for the gift.)

“Anytime, Peter,” Taylor whispers. She draws him into one last hug and then retreats, her lip wobbling. “Um, please call whenever you can. And if you ever want to swing by, we’re going to Fresno, then Los Angeles, then Coast City.”

“I will. Promise.”

She smiles and spins on her heel. Within moments, she's vanished into the crowd of performers.

Dick swallows hard and strides into the city, turning his back on yet another of his sanctuaries.

-

Weeks pass, and Dick settles into a new routine.

  1. Go out. 
  2. Score an odd job and use a random skill he learned as Robin ~~(or as the Apprentice)~~ to complete it. 
  3. Earn just enough cash to make rent for the crappy apartment he’s scored.



He does not think to contact Taylor or Lexi.

Dick thinks about other things instead. Nice things, like the quirk of Bruce’s mouth when he was trying not to smile at a horrible pun, like the scent of the soup Alfred always made after a bad night, like the sight of Jason performing Shakespeare for a tiny hoard of stuffed animals.

Like the echo of Donna’s laughter, like the way Roy had cursed when he’d accidentally triggered one of his arrows and buried himself in polyurethane foam. Like the hilarity of Garth keeping up with the gossip of marine animals, like the passion in Wally’s voice when he explained a principle of chemistry.

Unfortunately, Dick also has plenty of _bad_ memories to dwell on.

It’s not always his fault. Sometimes, he’ll be doing something mundane, and he’ll be forcibly dragged back to the worst moments of his life. 

He’d slipped on the stairs the other day. He’d caught himself, but the swoop in his stomach had made him feel like he had on his last night as Robin, when the bullet had slammed into his shoulder and he’d lost his grip on the grapple. He’d fallen two stories, and Bruce’s quick reflexes had been all that had saved him from meeting the same fate as his parents.

He’d passed by Jump City's graveyard, and he’d suddenly remembered that he’d heard about Jason’s death from the morning news. He’d been in Topeka with the circus, trying to ignore the paranoia that started clawing at him the second he’d stepped foot in Clark’s home state, when he’d seen the tail end of a broadcast and his world had fallen apart for the thousandth time. 

And right now, Dick is making dinner, and his gaze is locked on the knife in his hand. It’s a kitchen knife that he’d gotten at Goodwill for 99 cents, but the weight of it reminds him of a dagger, and that pulls his mind towards—

—blood over his hands and fear clogging his throat and _His_ voice in Dick’s ear—

Dick calmly sets the blade aside, washes his hands, and retreats to the bathroom to throw up.

After he comes back to himself, he realizes that his phone has been ringing. He drags himself off the dingy tile and shuffles to the living room. His phone is sitting on the wooden crate he uses as a table. Slowly, Dick picks the device up.

Taylor’s name is blinking on the screen. He calls back, ignoring the way his thumb trembles when he presses the button. 

She answers within a heartbeat. “Peter! Jesus, I was starting to think you were dead!”

“Um, no,” Dick says, sitting cross-legged on the threadbare rug. “Surprisingly, I’m alive.”

“Then why haven’t you called, jerk?!” She snaps. She’s trying to mask her hurt with anger, and if Dick hadn’t been trained to read people since childhood, he probably wouldn’t have noticed. Swallowing his guilt, he replies,

“Sorry, Taylor. I’ve been busy trying to sort things out. I didn’t exactly have that much warning before I was kicked to the curb.”

Taylor makes a small, choked noise. It sounds like a sob. But she collects herself quickly, saying, “I get that. But, well, I really wanted to see you, so I got on a bus. I’ll be in Jump City soon.”

“You— what?” Dick stutters.

“You heard me! Meet me at the old circus grounds in forty-five minutes!” Taylor says. “If you’re busy, I’ll just wait!”

She hangs up, and Dick is left staring at his phone.

After a few minutes spent in stunned silence, he hurries to the open suitcase in the corner of the room and pulls out a sweater. Quickly, he throws it over his head, grabs his keys, and heads out.

The sun paints the sky orange as he begins the long trek to the place where the Solstice had once stood. Dick fiddles with the sleeves of his sweater, unsure of what he’s going to say to Taylor once he meets her. He’ll have to let her do all the talking, like he always does.

Funny. Once upon a time, he was the one who filled in awkward silences.

Dick shakes the thought away and continues walking.

* * *

Taylor stumbles off the bus and stretches her arms above her head. Her back pops alarmingly, and she winces. _Buses suck. And it probably wasn’t a good idea to come out here, especially without giving Peter any warning._

 _But can anyone blame me?_ She thinks, scowling. _I miss that idiot, and I bet he misses me too, even if he doesn’t know how to work a freaking phone._

She rolls her eyes and starts walking. It only takes her twenty minutes to reach the lot where the circus had once been. To her surprise, there’s a fence and a padlocked gate cordoning the lot off from its surroundings.

Taylor gives the obstacle an assessing glance. _Figures that the city fences off the grounds when they aren’t in use. Oh, well— it’s not like it matters to me. I’m an acrobat._

Taking a few steps back, she runs at the fence, jumps, uses the railing at the top as a springboard, and flips neatly over the whole thing. She lands without a sound.

“Perfect 10, girl,” she mutters, brushing her bangs out of her eyes. 

With a sigh, Taylor strides deeper into the circus grounds. If she squints hard enough, she can make out the places where they’d set up the big top and trailers. The dirt still carries the scars from the heavy equipment.

She pauses at one of the grooves in the earth and waits. 

And waits.

And waits.

 _Peter had better come soon,_ she thinks, shivering. _I didn’t bring a jacket. What a dumbass I am…_

Just as Taylor is getting ready to call it quits, the earth rocks beneath her feet. 

Behind her, someone laughs.

Taylor yelps and whirls around, her hands automatically flying up in a weak attempt at defense. She lowers them when she catches sight of the newcomer.

It’s a girl with blonde hair and sky-blue eyes. She’s dressed in a brown and black outfit, not unlike the one-piece costumes worn by Cirque du Solstice performers.

“Did I scare you?” She asks, her mouth curving into a playful smile.

“Uh, a little. Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to sneak up on people?” Taylor stammers. “It’s kinda mean.”

“Sorry,” says the girl. 

She doesn’t seem sorry at all.

“Um,” Taylor begins, feeling uneasy. “Did you need something? ‘Cause if you don’t, I’m kinda waiting for someone.”

“Oh, I know,” she replies. 

Before Taylor can process that horrifying statement, the girl’s hand darts out, and something sharp and hard rams into her chest. 

The acrobat’s gaze drops to her ribcage, and she realizes that it was a knife. 

There is _a knife._ In her _chest._

Taylor doesn’t remember falling. One second, she’s standing, and the next, she’s on the ground and the girl is muttering, “Fuck, that was fatal. I did _not_ mean to kill her. Goddamn it.”

Taylor shakily reaches for her phone. She manages to retrieve it from her purse, but the girl kicks it out of her hand.

Crouching down, she murmurs, “I guess it’ll work out. Hey, if you’re still alive when Renegade gets here, tell him Deathstroke misses him, will you?”

Taylor doesn’t know what that means. Actually, she can’t focus on anything beyond the pain in her chest and the fact that it’s getting hard to breathe.

Dimly, she registers the girl walking away. The earth trembles again, and Taylor rolls onto her back.

The last thing she sees is the starry sky.

* * *

It’s dark by the time Dick arrives at the empty lot. He scales the fence and drops to the dirt below, squinting through the shadows in an attempt to find Taylor. He can’t see shit, so he turns on the little flashlight attached to his keychain.

The thin beam of light cuts through the darkness, but despite its illumination, Dick can’t locate the other acrobat.

“Taylor?” He calls quietly. “Taylor, where are you?”

Frowning, he takes another step forward. 

That’s when the tip of his boot hits something.

A body.

Dick nearly loses his grip on the key ring. He drops to his knees besides the crumpled form, whimpering in horror when he realizes it’s Taylor. Her white shirt is stained crimson with blood. 

And she isn’t breathing.

As he stares at her, he hears his own voice say, _Red’s not really your color._

Dick doesn’t know how long he stays there, frozen with panic and grief. A sharp gust of wind screams overhead, and the shrill sound is enough to startle him into withdrawing his phone and mechanically entering three numbers.

“911, what is your emergency?” 

“My friend has been murdered,” he says, his gaze sliding over Taylor’s face. Her eyes are wide open, fixed on the stars above.

“Where are you, sir?” The operator says. There’s an edge to his voice that suggests it’s the second or third time he’s repeated the question.

Dick recites the address and ends the call. With a hollow void in his chest, he gets to his feet, sweeps the heel of his boot over the dirt to erase his footprints, and leaves the way he had come.

He disassembles the burner phone with each step he takes. The bulk of it is thrown into a dumpster, the battery is tossed into the road— where a car promptly runs it over— and the SIM card is dropped into a storm sewer. That done, Dick returns to the apartment.

He sits on the wooden crate and doesn’t move for a long, long time.

-

Dick returns to awareness when the sun’s first rays fall over his skin. Apparently, at some point during the night, he’d toppled off the crate and curled up on the rug. Blinking away the remainder of his tears, he rolls over and clambers to his feet.

He removes his clothes with trembling hands and ducks into the shower. The water is frigid and the pressure is nonexistent, but he remains underneath the weak stream for as long as he can reasonably afford to. Then, on autopilot, he cleans up the mess he’d left in the kitchen the night before.

Dick holds the knife in his hand, thinking, _It hasn’t even been a day. How did everything go so wrong so quickly?_

It’s a ridiculous question. He’s seen operations fall apart in seconds, never mind hours. But he was supposed to have left this world— the world of violence and death— behind. 

He’d stopped looking for fights. God, he’d blown up that warehouse and called it quits. It was supposed to be _over._

 _But bad things happen to good people, don’t they?_ Dick thinks bitterly, throwing the knife into the sink. _It’s not fair,_ _but that’s fucking life._

Thomas and Martha Wayne were shot to death in an alley. A sabotaged trapeze led to the demise of John and Mary Grayson. Catherine Todd made one mistake— over and over again. Jason Todd-Wayne died hoping Batman would rescue him.

And now, someone had stabbed Taylor Lewis and let her bleed out in a city she was supposed to have left behind.

“It’s my fault,” Dick whispers. He presses the heels of his palms against his eyes, hard enough that he sees splotches of color explode in his vision.

If he’d just walked a little faster, he would’ve been able to save her. Hell, if it weren’t for him, Taylor wouldn’t have come back in the first place.

Dick feels dizzy with shame and sadness. He spends the next few days barely eating, and what little sleep he gets is plagued with nightmares. On a Sunday morning, he wakes with a mercenary’s voice whispering poison in his ears.

_“You’re no hero, Richard. How could you be?”_

Dick staggers to the bathroom, as he always does, but he somehow manages to force down his nausea. He stares at his reflection, into the eyes of the wreck he’s become.

For the first time in years, Dick does not look away from the mirror. He throws a swift punch instead. His aim and form are perfect— the mirror shatters into a dozen, glimmering shards. With shaking fingers, he picks up the largest piece.

“I’m not what you made me, Slade,” Dick says. “I’m not.”

His grip on the shard tightens until it slices into his palm, and clarity washes over him. He’s _not_ what Slade Wilson made him. He’s not what Bruce made him. He’s not what the circus— either circus— made him.

He is Richard Grayson, and he is an acrobat from a tiny village in France. He has been Robin, and he has been Renegade. He has been Petroica and a Flying Grayson, too. But none of that has any impact on who he will become.

And he's going to become the person that catches Taylor’s killer.

Dick drops the shard, binds his wounds, and storms into the city. There are people here— horrible people— that are going to help him do just that.

In two hours, he has located Professor Chang, an arms dealer who is capable of manufacturing suits and weapons. In three, he has successfully coerced the man into making gear for him. In five, he has hacked his way into Jump City’s CCTV feeds with the help of a dirty cop.

In ten, he has mapped out the Titans’ patrol routes and narrowed the location of their base down to a one-block radius. In twelve, he has identified the majority of their villains and sorted them into categories based on the threat they pose.

In seventy-two hours, Dick has his suit and his weapons.

It takes him another twenty-four to work up the courage to put the suit on. It’s primarily black, with heavier armor than he’s used to. An electric blue bird stretches across his chest; its wings trail down to the middle and ring fingers of his hands.

Dick applies spirit gum to the edges of a domino mask and covers his eyes. Slipping his weapons (escrima rods, new and deadlier than his bo staff ever could’ve been) into their holsters, he slips out of his window and climbs up the side of his apartment building. When he’s safely perched on the building’s edge, he takes a moment to look over the city.

A sea of twinkling lights greets him. Cars rush past, and if he strains his ears, he can hear snatches of a dozen different conversations. It’s the proof of life, of a million people laughing and loving and _breathing._

Dick is once again starting a career as a vigilante to bring a killer to justice. But in doing so, he’s also signing up to protect the people of Jump City. It’s not going to be easy. 

But he’s got to do it.

Dick takes a deep breath.

Nighthawk leaps off the edge of the building.

_Look in the mirror— there goes your hero._

[END OF ACT I - THE WEEK]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My friend was so, _so_ mad that I killed Taylor. I suspect some of you will be, too. But it had to be done!
> 
> In other news...
> 
> Yes, pre-Joker Jason went by Bluejay. I'm attached to that moniker, and besides, I needed to wrangle comics canon and TT03 canon into some semblance of coherency. (To elaborate: We know Robin is Dick Grayson [thanks to Fractured and Haunted]. And in X, Beast Boy outright tells us that Red X is Jason Todd. But we _also_ know that the Titans are fifteen for the majority of the series, because Raven's sixteenth birthday is at the end of Season 4. So... when the fuck did Jason die? He couldn't possibly have been fifteen, unless the show is trying to insist that he and Dick are the same age and were using the same alias at the same time. Therefore, I argue that in TT03, Dick and Jason grew up together, they adopted separate identities, and Jason died even younger than he did in ADitF. For the purposes of this fic, they were taken in within two years of each other [Dick was eleven; Jason was eight], and without the mantle of Robin hanging between them, they actually managed to develop a close relationship. Unfortunately, Dick left Gotham at age thirteen, and five years later, Jason was murdered.)
> 
> Dick's lines about being from a tiny town in France are pure conjecture; I headcanon him as being born in Montrichard. Just because.
> 
> I don't think the Titans had patrol routes in the show, but that makes no sense, so I fixed it. However, unlike the Bats, they're prone to skipping nights and switching routes willy-nilly.
> 
> Dick adopted the alias Night _hawk_ instead of Night _wing_ because using the latter name would probably attract unwanted attention.


	8. The Offspring - You're Gonna Go Far, Kid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Act II (Stability) - Part I: Welcome to the Teen Titans
> 
> _Five months later..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! We're finally moving forward with the plot, and _someone_ will soon be making an appearance!

_With a thousand lies and a good disguise, hit ‘em right between the eyes._

A mugger trails an unsuspecting drunk down the street. He grins at the prospect of making easy money— the idiot isn't paying an ounce of attention to their surroundings. This will be a cinch.

He's proven wrong when a young man drops from the rooftop and lands between the crook and the inebriated soul.

"Now, now," the newcomer drawls mockingly. "Didn't your parents ever teach you that stealing is bad?"

Like some kind of fool, the mugger brandishes a knife. "Get the hell away from me!"

With a sigh, the vigilante leaps forward.

The wannabe villain finds himself disarmed and held flat against the wall before he can blink. His hands are zip-tied behind him. As he shouts and curses, the young man calls the cops.

"Hello, dispatcher. I'm calling to inform you that there was an attempted burglary at the corner of Addison and 9th. Lucky for you, I wrapped up the mugger… with a zip-tie bow."

He hits the _end call_ button and smirks at the restrained thief. "Enjoy your stint in jail."

"Fuck you, bastard!"

"I'm gonna need you to try that one again. See, my name's actually—"

-

"—Nighthawk," Cyborg says, tossing the newspaper onto the counter.

"Cool," Garfield comments. "But are you sure this guy's real? I mean, people have been talking about him for ages, but we've never seen him."

"Just because something is unknown to us does not mean it does not exist," Starfire says. The impact of her wise words is somewhat diminished when she's chugging mustard out of the bottle, but Raven sees the truth in the statement.

"Star is right. People didn't think Batman existed, either," the demoness points out. "The Gotham Gazette reportedly thought that criminals were joking when they said someone dressed as a bat beat them to hell."

"Dude, that’s so dumb. Why would anyone make that up?"

"Good question," Cyborg says. "But I got a better one— do y'all think we should go looking for this Nighthawk guy?"

"No." Raven shakes her head and sets her cup of tea aside. "I have a feeling he'll come to us."

* * *

Raven! Rae! 

**Huh?** Raven startles at the telepathic shout, her senses going haywire until she fully wakes. **Garfield? What is it?**

I got tickets to the midnight premiere of Spider-Man: Far From Home! 

Raven can't decide whether to be angry that her boyfriend woke her up for this or touched that he wants to go on another date. **That's nice. Can you tell me more in the morning?**

Oops! Sorry, sweetie— I forgot you were sleeping. 

**Not sweet,** Raven thinks petulantly. Then she falls back into unconsciousness.

In the morning, the poor demoness is unceremoniously roused by the Titan alarm. Throwing on her outfit and shadow traveling to the living room, she demands, "What the hell is going on, and why is it happening at 7:15 AM?"

"I checked all the scanners and cameras I have access to, and I didn't find anything," Cyborg tells her. "It looks like it was a false alarm. Maybe some seismic activity tripped it?"

"That is still concerning," Starfire says. "Shall I fly around the city, just in case?"

"Only if you want to. Me, I'm going back to my charging station."

He ambles back to his room, and Starfire ducks out of an open window. Turning to Garfield, Raven asks, "Should we make breakfast?"

"I'm too tired to do anything more complicated than cereal," the changeling groans.

"Cereal it is," Raven agrees. They take seats on the couch with twin bowls of cocoa puffs (though her boyfriend has used soy milk instead of 2%).

After a few minutes of distracted slurping, she asks, "What were you saying last night?"

"Oh! I got tickets to the Far From Home premiere right before they sold out. It's tonight at midnight!"

"Excellent. Are we teleporting, or is Cyborg letting you borrow the T-Car?"

The changeling rubs the back of his head. "Actually, um, I was thinking of going as civilians. I had Cy make a holographic generator for me."

"Really?" Raven says. She’s suspected for a while that Garfield misses his former appearance, but she’s never brought it up. It hadn’t felt right.

"Yeah. And I figured you could do a little spell to hide your gem, and we'd be golden."

"I like it," she says. "I miss being incognito."

Garfield grins, his fangs on full display. "Tonight, that's all we'll be."

-

The heroes walk to the theater, utterly unassuming in their disguises. With a minor glamour hiding her gem and makeup on her exposed skin, Raven looks like any run-of-the-mill goth. And with a hologram covering his entire body, Garfield looks like he walked off the cover of Sports Illustrated.

No one gives them a second glance as they buy popcorn, hand over their tickets, and find seats in the topmost row.

 **I never realized how much attention we attracted until we didn't attract any,** Raven marvels.

Right? Garfield answers.  That's why I suggested this. I just wanted to be normal teens for once, 'cause we've gotten interrupted, like, seven too many times. 

**Honestly. Well, let's enjoy ourselves for the next… three hours.**

The movie is technically brilliant. It’s clear that the Disney execs pulled out all the stops after the success of Spider-Man: Homecoming. Raven likes it well enough, but there’s two things that bug her. One— the mind-fuckery employed by Mysterio is far too similar to Mad Mod’s tricks for her to enjoy it properly, and two… 

"Okay," she huffs as they walk out of the theater. "Was it just me, or did they purposely make J. Jonah Jameson look like the man from InfoWars?"

"They totally did," Garfield confirms.

"…I didn't think I could hate him more, and yet."

"And yet they likened him to a guy that yells about gay frogs and turns the color of a tomato when he argues with reasonable people?"

Raven raises an eyebrow. "Those are two wildly different vices."

"And I say in complete seriousness, as a bisexual who is occasionally a frog—" her boyfriend replies, but he bursts into laughter before he can finish the joke.

The demoness starts to smile, but her mirth is abruptly ruined by the sound of a gun cocking.

Raven feels the cold press of metal against the small of her back. Two feet away, another man holds his weapon to Garfield's temple.

"Oh, this one is pretty," he says, looking over her frozen boyfriend. "I think he'll fetch a million, easy."

"I agree. I'll kill the spare," says the person behind her.

 **Traffickers!** Raven thinks. **Shit! Garfield, change—**

The weight against her spine suddenly vanishes, and she hears the unmistakable sound of a body slamming into a brick wall. In the same moment, a throwing star streaks through the air and buries itself into the hand of Garfield's captor.

Garfield changes into a crow and soars toward her, leaving his clothes in a haphazard pile behind him. Raven holds out her arm. When he lands on her outstretched limb, she drops the glamour.

They needn't have bothered with the display of power. The traffickers are getting the shit beaten out of them by a young man in a black and blue costume. As they stare, the vigilante kicks a knife out of one thug's hand and rams an escrima stick into the other's wrist, disarming them both. 

The motions are familiar... as is the flare of emotions a touch too strong, hidden under a guise of control.

Dude, Garfield thinks,  Is that— 

"—Peter?" Raven says hesitantly. 

* * *

As Dick knocks the traffickers out, it occurs to him that one of the victims had called him by his alias. Confused— and slightly panicked— he glances over his shoulder. 

Two Titans stare back at him.

 _Oh, you've gotta be kidding me. Which higher power did I piss off? What did I do to deserve this?_

Forcing a smile, Dick says, "Raven, Beast Boy. This is awkward."

"Don't worry about it. What are you doing here?"

Dick doesn’t have it in him to explain what had happened. He deflects the question by shrugging and saying, "I decided that active combat was a great substitute for therapy. You?"

"I was on a hot date." Raven waves her free hand in the direction of her boyfriend. 

"I hope you know how weird it is to hear you say that about a bird."

"Beast Boy wasn't in uniform. Regular clothes don't shift with him," Raven replies. Blowing her hair out of her eyes, she sighs, "To think we wanted a normal night out…"

"Normal, huh," Dick muses. _Once you turn to vigilantism, your life will never be normal again._

"It worked for a grand total of three hours."

"Well, I'm sorry that your date ended this way. I'll just call the cops and get out of your hair," chirps the vigilante, cursing his consistently inelegant exits from uncomfortable conversations.

"No need," Raven says. "I dropped a pin with my Titan communicator. The police are already en route."

She suddenly tilts her head towards Beast Boy, almost like he's speaking. After twenty seconds of listening to silence, she tells Dick, "Beast Boy wants you to come back to the compound. Frankly, I agree. I think we have some things to talk about."

Dick really, _really_ doesn’t want to go with the heroes, but there’s no way he can get out of this, not without attacking the pair. Sighing in defeat, he returns his weapons to their customary place on his back.

“Lead the way.”

The couple takes him to the compound. It’s eerily silent; Starfire and Cyborg must be asleep. Beast Boy, still in bird form, ushers him toward a table set between two red sofas. Meanwhile, Raven glides across the floor and to the kitchen, where she pours them all steaming mugs of hot chocolate.

In what feels like no time at all, Beast Boy— now clad in his costume— appears next to her. He pecks her on the cheek as he accepts his drink. “Thanks, babe.”

“Yeah, thank you,” Dick echoes. He peers into his own cup, and his mouth quirks into a smile. Post-patrol hot chocolate is an old tradition, albeit one he hasn’t partaken in for a long time. This might be Swiss Miss (something that would make poor Alfred shudder in revulsion), but he savors the first sip all the same.

After they’ve drained half their mugs, Dick tentatively asks, “What did you want to discuss?”

“Ah. First things first, why are you still in Jump? And why are you doing—” here Raven waves a hand at the Nighthawk costume— “this?”

Dick supposes she wants an actual answer, not a quip. He picks at his utility belt as he tries to figure out where to begin. 

Haltingly, he explains, “The day I helped you fight Cinderblock, the Solstice’s ringmaster suggested I leave the circus. I didn’t… I still don’t understand why, exactly, but I listened. I packed my bags and stayed in Jump City.

“One night, Taylor came to visit me. Do you remember Taylor?”

The Titans nod. Their expressions are open and curious, and Dick closes his eyes, not wanting to see the pity that will inevitably wash over their faces.

“I was late to the meeting. When I finally showed up, she was dead. Someone stabbed my best friend and left her to bleed out. Like she was nothing,” Dick whispers. “I didn’t want to be a hero. I still don’t. But I have to find out who killed her. It’s the least I can do.”

“Peter, I am so sorry,” Raven says. She reaches over the table, and Dick takes her hand, feeling that damnable tightness in his chest again.

He hears a soft purr, and Beast Boy, in the form of a house cat, curls up against his thigh. He lets go of Raven’s hand and strokes the cat’s green fur, adding, “I’ve been looking for her killer for months. But the police have no leads, and I can’t find anything, either. Whoever did it seems to have… gotten lucky.”

Raven is silent for a few moments. Then she says, “We’ve been looking into Nighthawk. You’re undoubtedly effective. And like Cyborg always said, you’re definitely cut out for this job. No one here would object to your presence.”

 _I object to it!_ Dick’s subconscious wails. Aloud, he says, “Where are you going with this?”

“We have resources the police don’t. We can help you get justice for your friend.”

Dick freezes with his hand still buried in Beast Boy’s fur. _Is she serious?_

His first instinct is to argue, to tell her to go straight to hell with her offer. Joining the Titans is the _last_ thing he wants to do. Unfortunately, though, Raven has a point. These heroes might be able to help him. And for Taylor, he’ll try anything.

“Two weeks,” the acrobat says. “I join the team for two weeks, and we see how it goes. If it doesn’t work out, we go our separate ways. If it does… we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“Your terms are acceptable. Welcome to the Teen Titans, Nighthawk,” Raven says. 

Underneath his fingertips, Dick feels Beast Boy resume purring. He smiles, hesitant but sincere. 

“Thanks.”

_Let’s hope this doesn’t blow up in my face._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really like Spider-Man, if you hadn't noticed.


	9. Thutmose - Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Act II (Stability) - Part II: Hello, Stranger
> 
> A thief called Red X arrives in Jump, and Dick comes face to face with a boy that's supposed to be dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been waiting to post this for _nine weeks._

_My memories came back in the form of someone else._

To the shock of no one— save for Dick himself— Nighthawk fits into the team like a missing puzzle piece.

It’s ridiculous. Dick hasn’t fought regularly in years, and he hasn’t been in an established team for even longer. This week shouldn’t be going so well.

But it is. When the Titans go into battle, Dick knows exactly what to do and where to go before the commands have even finished traveling through the comms. More than that, the team seems to like his presence. Not a day goes by without one of them asking to hang out or look over some case work.

Currently, they’re in the middle of a battle with some idiot called Doctor Light. As it stands, the man is terrified of Raven and lacks the killing instinct necessary to make his photokinesis dangerous.

That doesn’t mean he can’t get lucky, though.

In the midst of trying to escape a vengeful Raven, one of the villain’s blasts goes wide. It slams into the ledge Dick is perched on, and his world turns into a dizzying blur of lights and shadows as he topples off the building.

“Shit,” he swears, scrambling for his grappling hook. Even as he grabs it, though, he knows there’s next to nowhere it can attach to. 

Before he can start calculating the damage the fall is about to do, he’s caught in a pair of strong arms. The spinning shades solidify, and red fills his vision.

Dick’s racing heart slows. _Of course someone was there to catch me._

He opens his mouth to thank the speedster—

“Friend Peter, are you alright?”

The words get stuck in the acrobat’s throat. He ends up stammering an affirmative as Starfire lowers them to the ground. She sets him on his feet, and over her shoulder, he sees a mass of darkness spit the shrieking villain into Cyborg’s hands.

Starfire beams and floats off, leaving Dick to fidget with his escrima rods. He stays silent as the team heads to Pizza Corner. 

Wally’s name is still on the tip of his tongue, along with the memory of errant sparks and a voice promising, _I’ll catch you if you fall, Dickie-bird!_

Dick has been doing this a lot lately. Remembering, he means. Being with the Titans takes him back to simpler times, when he would get into all sorts of trouble with Roy, Donna, Garth, and Wally. He often finds himself expecting Beast Boy to talk to fish and Cyborg to burst out of his room, ranting about the latest upgrade to his bow.

Too often.

With a deep breath, Dick locks the past away again. He refuses to dwell on it, even when he’s back in the compound, safely ensconced in the cocoon of his new comforter.

(He dreams of turquoise eyes and chemistry puns.)

* * *

Dick is startled from his sleep by the shrill sound of an alarm. He tumbles off the bed and throws on his costume.

"What's going on?" He asks, stumbling into the living room with the grace of a drunken monkey. It's not a good look, but he's sure he'll be forgiven, seeing as it's five in the morning and _they just got back from patrol, goddammit._

Cyborg gestures to the monitor. The camera feed he's tapped into shows a boy in a black and white suit cheerfully robbing a bank.

"Red X? I actually thought we managed to run him out of town last time!" Beast Boy complains. He scrubs a line of drool off his chin, looking petulant.

"Well, we didn't," Raven sighs. "Let's go, Titans."

Ten minutes later, they're rushing to the Bank of Perez. Upon their arrival, they find several police officers glued to the building's steps.

"Oh, thank God!!" One of the officers wheezes around a mouthful of red gunk. "The Titans are here!"

"We shall defeat the Red X and free you shortly!" Starfire promises. She flits into the bank through a shattered window, Raven and Beast Boy hot on her heels.

Unlike their flying companions, Dick and Cyborg enter through the front door, which has been blown open by an explosion. The acrobat frowns at the rubble.

"This guy has a lot of firepower. How'd he get it?"

"He robbed all the xenothium dealers in the state," Cyborg says grimly. "His suit is powered with the stuff; it makes him impossible to fight."

 _Xenothium?! What the hell? That element is tightly regulated for a reason!_ Dick curses. He'll really have to watch his back tonight.

The sound of starbolts firing and a tiger's roar let the two men know that their teammates have engaged the thief. They hurry toward the scuffle, only to witness Red X tossing a stun grenade at Raven.

It explodes in her face. Unfazed, the thief flips out of the way of another starbolt and calls, "Sorry 'bout that, beautiful!"

"Raven!" Beast Boy cries, dropping to his dazed girlfriend's side.

"I'm fine!" She snarls, blindly hurling a statue of the bank's founder at Red X. Cyborg fires his cannon and Dick throws a few of his own explosives. The criminal avoids all the attacks with unnatural grace.

 _His motions are familiar. Why?_ Dick thinks, using Cyborg's shoulder as a springboard and launching himself at the villain. His first strike is blocked, his second is dodged, and his third is countered with a vicious punch to the jaw.

"Oh, jeez, you guys found a new member?" Red X says teasingly. "Does he know this is a losing fight?"

 _His voice is familiar, too! Who…_

Dick gets his answer when the thief feints and dashes past him. He then runs up and over a section of the wall to avoid an enraged Beast Boy, prompting a memory to float to the surface of the acrobat's mind.

_"Dick," a childish voice asked, "how did you do that?"_

_"Do what?" He replied, stripping off the reinforced gloves of the Robin suit._

_"Run up the wall! I didn't know that was possible!"_

_Dick laughed. "It totally is. You just need to build up enough momentum. Watch!"_

_He took off, building up speed before jumping at the wall and running parallel to the ground for a few seconds. The hero then twisted into a flip, dismounting neatly and returning to the other boy._

_"That was so cool!"_

_Dick didn't say it, but the praise warmed his heart. "You try it."_

_"What if I fall?" The younger boy queried, worry shining in his eyes._

_"It doesn't matter, because I'll catch you, Jay."_

Red X escapes while Dick is frozen, a single thought looping through his mind.

_I taught Jason that. Is Jason… alive?_

-

The Titans return to the compound, battle weary (and in Raven's case, extremely disoriented).

"I fucking hate that guy," Beast Boy says, helping his girlfriend to the sofa. "He's always got some stupid trick up his sleeve, so whenever we think we've got him, he just pulls a Houdini and disappears!"

 _Of course he does._ Dick thinks. _He was trained by Bruce, just like me. We were one with the shadows, and our backup plans had backup plans._

So no, Red X's combat skills aren't surprising. The fact that he might be— is?— Jason, however… that’s a different story. 

Because Jason is supposed to be dead.

The official story regarding his brother’s untimely demise is that he had gotten caught in a terrorist attack in Ethiopia. But Dick has an awful hunch that one of Bruce’s villains was involved; Jason and another American woman were the only casualties in the incident, and there are plenty of other details that don’t add up, either. If Dick had had any less self-restraint, he would’ve hacked the Batcomputer and been knee-deep in the actual report the day he’d gotten the news.

(And what a horrible day it had been. Cirque du Solstice had been forced to extend their stay in Topeka because their headline act had a complete breakdown and went catatonic for two days. 

He hadn't even been able to explain _why_ he cared about the death of a boy he, by all rights, should never have met.

In short, it was a very bad time.)

But now his younger brother is back and terrorizing the entirety of California. Dick wants to know why, and more importantly, _how._ There's no way that Dr. Thompkins (or _Bruce,_ for that matter) made a mistake when they declared that Jason was gone for good.

As the team trudges back to their rooms, unwilling to discuss the night's failure, Dick resolves to get a hold of Red X.

He wants answers.

* * *

The team gets a reprieve from their X problem for three days. In that time, though, the city is attacked by Overload, Mad Mod, Mother Mae Eye, and Control Freak.

"I'm beat," Cyborg grumbles, collapsing onto the couch. "There better not be any attacks tonight."

"Dude, you just jinxed it!" Beast Boy shouts.

"Friend Jinx is no longer a villain," Starfire says, confusion in her voice. "She has no reason to use her powers of bad luck on us."

Raven shuts her book, explaining, "It's an expression. He means that Cyborg has essentially invited another attack."

"I hope you're wrong," Dick grumbles. He rotates his wrist, hearing his radius and ulna click in an alarming manner. His body hasn't borne this much stress in a good, long while, and he's hoping for a break.

Of course, he doesn't get one. Dick doesn't deserve nice things, as decreed by some bitch named Fate. The Titans are called to a break-in at a lab at 3:26 in the morning.

"Who the hell would wanna rob a crappy science lab?" Beast Boy hisses as they enter the building.

"I'm gonna give y'all one guess," Cyborg says.

"Can we have a clue?"

Cyborg turns his scanner toward his teammates. There are several splotches of red on the display. "There's xenothium here. Now, who's a fan of xenothium?"

"Red X," Dick whispers.

"And Nighthawk is a winner!"

"Let's split up," Raven says wearily, rubbing her forehead. "We'll cover more ground that way. And Beast Boy, before you even start, I do not need your protection. I'll survive."

"Promise?" Beast Boy says, but he allows her to sink into the shadows without a fuss. 

Dick runs for the stairs the minute the plan has been finalized. He knows exactly where Jason will be.

They were both Bats, and Bats will always want to go _up._

True to form, the thief is on the roof, rifling through a bag of glowing xenothium cores. Dick mutes his steps and slows his breathing, sneaking up on the other boy with the finesse of Batman himself.

Once he's close enough, he says, "Hello, Little Wing."

Red X lets out an aborted yelp and falls backwards. He manages to turn the graceless motion into a somersault, whirling to face Dick with his hands still full of his prize. Dick can tell he's preparing for a fight, but the tension in his posture melts into shock as the acrobat's words actually register in his brain.

"No way… Dick?" 

"Jason," Dick returns, walking toward his wayward brother. The younger boy allows him to pull off the Red X mask, and he drinks in the sight of the other's face. Jason is older (Dick had missed him growing up, oh _god),_ and there's a streak of white in his hair that wasn't there before. But there are still traces of the boy Dick knew and loved in his features.

"I thought you were dead," Jason stammers. "Have you been here this whole time?"

"No, I haven't, and I could say the same to you."

Jason looks away, bitterness burning in his eyes. “I _was_ dead.”

“What happened?” Dick asks, his voice cracking in the middle of the question.

“I found… information,” the younger boy says haltingly. “It turns out that Catherine wasn’t my birth mother. And I was fighting with Bruce, anyway— he got so awful after you disappeared— so I left. I went looking for my ‘real’ mom. And she led me right into one of Joker’s traps.”

_“No.”_

“Yeah,” Jason laughs without humor. “He beat the ever-loving shit out of me and left me in a warehouse with a bomb. The clock hit zero, then boom! No more Bluejay.

“But I got a second chance. I crawled out of my own damn grave and healed myself in one of the Lazarus Pits."

Dick has never heard a good word about the Pit, but if it saved Jason, he's grateful for it. "I'm glad," he says, trying to convey the depth of his emotion in the simple phrase.

"Maybe you shouldn't be," the thief sneers. "Daddy Bats sure wouldn't be happy if he knew what I was planning."

"Which is…?"

Grinning, Jason holds up the xenothium. The light of the unstable power source casts eerie, red shadows across his face. "Everyone thinks I'm stockpiling this shit for my suit. That's not true. I don't need _that_ much to power this thing. No, I want xenothium so I can kill that fucking clown once and for all!"

"You want to murder the Joker?" Dick says in disbelief.

"It's only fair," Jason snarls. "After what he did to me? He deserves it! And _I_ deserve to kill him!"

Dick would be a goddamn hypocrite if he told Jason not to kill— his hands are stained with blood. But that's how he knows that murder changes a person. With a harsh sigh, he says, "I won’t stop you, but Little Wing… I hope you’ve thought this through."

"Oh, I've put a _lotta_ thought into it, Goldie," Jason replies. "Your friends are coming; I can hear them. Are we gonna fight?"

Dick shakes his head and tosses the skull mask back to his brother. "Go. Get out of here."

Jason throws a net over the acrobat to make it look like they'd had something other than a civil conversation. Before he leaps off the roof, he says, "I'm glad you didn't kick the bucket, Boy Wonder. Dying isn't fun."

Then he vanishes.

Starfire and Cyborg find Dick staring at the starry sky with his limbs wrapped in carmine wire and a pensive expression on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may not have made it clear, but Dick, Donna, Wally, Garth, and Roy were a team for a very short period of time before Dick's disappearance... and of course, they were all close friends.
> 
> Anyway, I am so very happy that Jason is here. I love that little shit.


	10. Get Scared - Sarcasm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Act II (Stability) - Part III: House of Cards
> 
> An old enemy enters the arena.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! This isn't a very long chapter, but I suspect some of you were anxious for this particular penny to drop.
> 
> CW: Violence against a child.

_Hang me up by my neck, ‘cause I’m a fate worse than death._

Deathstroke stands before the wall of monitors, watching the Teen Titans chase Red X through the city. It's not going well for the hero team; the thief is fast, and unlike ⅘ of the Titans, he can teleport.

Shaking his head at the absurdity, the mercenary lets his eyes drift to the group's latest addition. They call him Nighthawk, but Slade Wilson knows him by another name.

_"Oh, Robin," he hummed, eyes roving over the form of the small boy pinned underneath him. "You never learn, do you?"_

_His apprentice let out a pained whimper. Slade smirked and twisted Robin's right arm higher behind his back. The boy was flexible, but there was only so far he could bend. A scream escaped his mouth._

_"Stop," he gasped. "Stop! I'm sorry!"_

_"You reap what you sow, little bird," Slade chided. "I'm going to have to teach you a lesson."_

_Fear flashed across the boy’s face. "No! Please, don't…"_

_Slade tightened his grip. With a click of his tongue, he bent down and whispered,_

_"'No' means nothing to me."_

_To punctuate his statement, he wrenched Robin’s shoulder out of its socket._

Slade taps the hilt of his sword, smiling at the memory. Richard Grayson had been such a willful little brat, but he had the potential to surpass the world's greatest mercenary. That had been evident from the moment he first laid eyes on the boy.

 _But the point was really driven home by the murder attempt,_ he thinks, snorting. If it hadn't been for Tara, Slade would've died then and there.

Speak of the devil. His second apprentice ambles toward him, whistling softly.

"Did you complete your task?" Slade asks.

The young woman smiles and tucks a lock of blonde hair behind her ear. "Yes. The Titans have a big storm coming."

"Excellent."

"I do my best. Say, how come you still want him?" Tara queries, waving a hand at a frozen image of Nighthawk. "I thought you'd be mad that he tried to off you."

"Oh, Tara. So young, so narrow-minded. If anything, that made me want him more."

He turns back to the screens, adding, "And soon, I'll have him."

* * *

Unaware of his enemy's scheming, Dick collapses onto the couch. He's exhausted. So exhausted, in fact, that he could melt into the sofa right now.

"I. Hate. That. Guy," Beast Boy wheezes. He chugs a bottle of water and frantically fans himself, clearly having overheated during the chase.

"Seconded," Cyborg groans. "Man, why'd _we_ have to end up with Red X? Why couldn't he have gone to… I don't know, Gotham?"

Dick nearly chokes on the irony. _Gotham is what Jason's_ running from _. At least until he sorts out his issues and figures out how best to kill the Joker._

"Batman has enough issues without that jerk," Raven points out. She accepts an otter pop from Starfire, who swoops over to the boys and hands out more of the frozen treats.

"Thanks, Star," Dick mumbles, unwrapping the cherry-flavored popsicle and biting through half of it in one go.

"Of course! Now, who wants to go to the pool?" The heroine asks cheerfully.

"I'm in!" Beast Boy shouts. He crams his popsicle into his mouth and races to his room, presumably to find swim trunks.

"Might as well," Raven sighs. She sinks into a shadow and vanishes.

Cyborg shakes his head, saying, "Pass. I need to recharge. Are you gonna go, Peter?"

Dick bites the inside of his cheek. Truthfully, he'd love to, but he's covered in scars. And the thought of explaining where they’d all come from makes him… panicky, to say the least.

"No. I'll see you all at dinner," he replies.

Once the others have gone, the acrobat finds it in him to leave the couch and stagger to his room. Once he’s sure the door is shut and locked, he removes the domino mask that’s been stuck to his face for the past twelve hours.

 _Pros of being part of a hero team: nobody cares that you like to hide your face. Cons of being on a hero team: the skin around your eyes never sees the light of day,_ Dick thinks wryly. He rubs the bridge of his nose and sinks into a chair, tossing the mask onto his desk as he does. The surface of said desk is covered in newspaper clippings, crime scene photos, and maps. The wall above it is similarly plastered with papers.

“It looks like the Batcomputer threw up in here,” the acrobat mutters. And he’s only been here for a week and a half, too. Jesus. Dick would be annoyed if the chaos weren’t so comforting. The mess associated with solving a case feels… nostalgic.

Too bad the case is his best friend’s murder.

As he has every day for the past few months, Dick combs through Taylor’s file. Despite the help of the Titans, it’s embarrassingly sparse.

Security cameras in the surrounding stores had caught the girl leaving the bus and jumping the fence around the circus grounds, but the lens of the only camera on the lot had been covered in dirt, rendering its footage useless. There were no witnesses, and there wasn’t any physical evidence, either.

Dick’s only worthwhile evidence is a collection of photos taken of the crime scene. From those, he knows that someone had stabbed Taylor with a blade approximately five inches long. It had slipped between her fourth and fifth ribs and pierced her lung, causing the organ to collapse. 

She hadn’t had the time to scream before she died.

With a sigh of frustration, Dick leans back in his chair and presses the heels of his palms into his eyes. It’s times like these that he wishes he was back in Gotham, where Bruce— the World’s Greatest Detective— was always willing to help with cases. But he can’t return to the Manor, not after what he’s done.

Besides, Gotham has changed. The Joker had forced Barbara into an early retirement, which led to another girl taking up her mantle. Some vigilante that wasn’t a Bat had been running wild through the streets for the past six weeks.

 _And the cherry on top?_ Dick thinks, picking up a copy of the Gotham Gazette. _There’s another bird._

The front page is dominated by a photo of a young boy in a black, red, and gold costume, swinging through the streets with a devil-may-care smile on his face.

Dick sets the paper aside and sighs. If he were any younger or any less weary, he’d be angry about the newly christened Cardinal. As it is, though, he only wishes the best for the boy.

He doesn’t deserve the fate of his predecessors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like Deathstroke, uhh... just keep in mind that I really, really _don't._
> 
> Gotham's current vigilante lineup is as follows: 
> 
> Bruce - Batman  
> Barbara - Oracle  
> Cassandra - Batgirl  
> Stephanie - Spoiler  
> Tim - Cardinal


	11. Imagine Dragons - Bleeding Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Act II (Stability) - Part IV: Fragile, Handle With Care
> 
> After an unsettling glimpse at "Peter's" memories, Raven realizes that their newest recruit may be more dangerous than he seems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Death, (comic) canon-typical violence, and suicidal ideation.

_So I bare my skin, and I count my sins, and I close my eyes, and I take it in._

_With dread flowing through her veins, she trailed after her target. The sword on her back felt like it was hanging above her head._

_She didn’t want to kill the man. She really didn’t. But if she failed,_ He _would do something infinitely worse to her._

_The man— and he was a person, not just a target. He had a wife and two kids— finally noticed he was being followed. He spun around, reaching for the gun at his hip, but she was faster. In a single, deft motion, she unsheathed the sword and slit his throat._

_He crumpled to the asphalt and breathed his last._

_Blood, red like the costume she once wore, began to dry on her skin._

_“Is it done?” Someone whispered into her ear._

_Shaking with adrenaline and horror, she choked out an affirmative. Then, she fled into the night._

_Once she was far enough away, she fell to her knees and threw up. Her sword slipped out of her hand. As she sputtered and hacked, she caught a glimpse of herself in the blade and entertained the fantasy of driving it into her stomach._

At that, Raven snaps awake and tumbles out of the air. She lands on her bed, wheezing as the breath is knocked out of her. The demoness hasn’t levitated in her sleep in a long time. But considering what she’d just seen, she’s willing to cut herself some slack.

Taking a deep breath, Raven chants to herself, _I am not my nightmares. I am not a killer._

The guilt and panic rolls off her, like water from a bird’s back.

Opening her eyes, Raven glances at the clock. There’s no point in going back to sleep— it’s almost time for patrol. She gets dressed and drifts into the kitchen, wondering if she should make a cup of tea.

To her surprise, Peter is already there, perched on the counter and staring at the kettle. His eyes are wide and haunted, and he makes no move to acknowledge her presence.

 _What the hell?_ Raven thinks. Aloud, she tentatively says, “Peter? Are you alright?”

The acrobat startles and nearly loses his balance. He tightens his grip on the edge of the granite slab, so much so that his knuckles turn bone-white under his brown skin.

“I’m fine. Did I wake you up?”

Raven is about to shake her head, but a sudden realization stops her dead in her tracks. _Wait. I’ve had nightmares about killing people before, but that dream didn’t feel like mine. And it was so specific. Was that_ his memory?

Raven stares at Peter, who is dropping a bag of chamomile tea into a mug with trembling fingers. She bites her lip hard enough to bleed. _I offered him a place on this team. But was I… were we too quick to trust him?_

The demoness starts brewing her own tea. In the time it takes for it to steep, the other Titans enter the living room. Starfire flits past Peter and dives into the fridge. Cyborg switches the computers on, searching for potential threats. 

Garfield moves to join him, but Raven must be projecting something awful, because her boyfriend stops dead in his tracks. She pinches their link shut— a clear sign that she doesn’t want to talk about the situation.

Whatever the situation even is.

Raven drains the mug in one sip and says, “Let’s head out.”

-

The demoness wishes she’d just gone back to sleep. She’s only been patrolling for an hour, and she’s already stopped three muggings, prevented a car accident, and walked a teenage girl home.

As the girl shuts her front door, Raven’s communicator starts ringing. She flips it open and sees that she has an alert from Jump City’s Museum of Natural History.

“What are we looking at?” Raven says into the device. She soars into the sky and speeds towards the scene of the crime, her hair whipping wildly in the wind.

“Armed robbery. Preliminary reports said that the guys have some weird-looking guns,” Cyborg replies. “They ‘look like those blasters from bad movies set in space, except they can actually do some damage.’ Who’s closest?”

“On site,” Peter says.

“One minute out!” Garfield pants. “Star and I just wrapped up with some vandals.”

Raven swoops onto the museum’s roof, touching down beside Peter. “I’m here.”

“Think you can get us inside?” The acrobat says in greeting. “I can’t fit through the air shaft.”

Instead of asking why he can say that with such certainty, Raven raises her hands. Her soul self spreads its wings and pulls them into the building. The hallway they drop into is awash with dim crimson light, and far away, a siren is ringing. If Raven were prone to fear, she’d be a little scared right now.

Her gaze drifts to Peter. He doesn’t seem scared, either. In fact, he’s peeking around the corner and whispering into the comms.

“…five people. Two with the blasters, three with AR-15s. If you bust in and draw their fire, Raven and I can pick them off from behind.”

“Good plan. Let’s go, team!” Cyborg answers.

The second the words leave his mouth, she hears the tell-tale sound of starbolts powering up. Starfire shatters the window and flings a ball of emerald energy at the thieves, who shout in alarm. Peter inches into the room, Raven a half-step behind him. They see that Starfire has successfully knocked out one robber. Cyborg and Garfield— who is in panther form— are fighting two of the others.

Peter takes a running step and handsprings onto a woman’s shoulders. He locks his thighs around her head, twists, and drags her to the floor. Her blaster flies out of her grasp. One of the other thieves fires in retaliation, but Raven stops the bullets in mid-air and tosses the man into the wall with her telekinesis.

“Five for five,” Garfield says, shifting back and blowing his bangs out of his eyes. “Not bad.”

“Not at all— ah!” 

Peter crumples to the ground with the rest of the sentence still caught in his throat. 

Behind him stands a sixth robber, his blaster raised and smoking.

With a shriek of fury, Starfire releases a blast of radioactive green power, blowing the final thief backwards. He rams into the wall with a sickening crunch and ceases to move.

Raven hastily shoves her doubts about Peter’s character aside. She runs to the fallen Titan— who is face-down on the tile— and drops to her knees. The back of his suit has been burnt away, and blood is leaking sluggishly from the ragged edges of the wound.

“Holy shit,” Garfield stammers. “Oh my god, Rae, you gotta do something!”

“Quiet!” Raven snaps. She’ll feel bad about being so short later, but right now, she needs to concentrate. Closing her eyes and drawing on her powers, she lets white light spill from her fingertips.

Her healing is finicky at the best of times. Tonight, though, it’s willing to work with her. The magic sinks into Peter’s back and starts knitting the burnt flesh back together. Satisfied, the demoness lowers her hands, but power keeps draining out of her.

_What? Why is it—_

The magic floods through the acrobat, seeking out more damage. She feels it wrap around misaligned bones from breaks that didn’t heal correctly and gasps when it touches a wound that couldn’t have been caused by anything other than a bullet.

_That can’t possibly be from this fight; it’s too old. What the hell happened to him?_

Peter stirs. Slowly, he gets to his hands and knees.

“I can breathe,” he mutters to himself.

Raven stays silent as the other Titans swarm around Peter. She doesn’t speak to any of them when they return to the compound. Instead, she retreats to her room. 

The demoness paces in mid-air, her thoughts spinning ceaselessly around her brain. _How did he get hurt that badly? I’ve never seen damage like that, and we’ve been a team for almost four years._

Granted, Raven is capable of speeding up her recovery time. Starfire is more durable than the average human (at least when she’s in the right headspace). If Cyborg breaks, he rebuilds himself. And Garfield can change into an animal form with accelerated healing. He'd once told her he'd shifted into a starfish to regrow a lost limb, for God’s sake.

Well, when you put it that way, it makes sense for her to be upset. She’s never had to deal with anything like this before.

Raven sits cross-legged on her bed and puts her head into her hands, thinking, _Why is it that every time I learn something about Peter, it’s something I’d have been better off not knowing?_

Someone knocks on her door while she’s in the midst of brooding. Judging by the pattern, it’s not Cyborg or Starfire… so it’s probably her boyfriend.

“Come in,” Raven calls, snapping her fingers and clearing away the magical artifacts spread over the floor.

Peter opens the door. 

Raven straightens as he slips into her room. She can’t see his eyes behind the mask, but she can feel what he feels. He’s cautious. Curious. And… concerned? 

The demoness takes a deep breath. “Did you need something?”

“I was wondering if you were okay,” says the acrobat. “You skipped debrief. And you’ve been hiding up here for the better part of an hour.”

“I’m fine. Are _you?”_

Peter huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, ‘cause you healed me. Thanks for that.”

“I healed you,” Raven echoes. She gets off the bed and glides toward him. “I healed the wound from the blaster. Do you know what happened after that? My powers _kept going._ They found _more damage_ to fix. And afterwards, you said you could finally breathe.”

Peter says nothing, so she presses, “Your lung capacity was impaired by multiple poorly healed rib breakages. Why?”

“I mean, I was an acrobat in a circus. It’s not exactly the safest job.”

“No, that can’t be it. There was too much!”

Unbidden, the nightmare comes to the forefront of Raven’s mind. If she’s remembering it right, and if it really _was_ a memory, Peter hadn’t killed that man of his own volition. Someone had _forced_ him to. Could that same person have hurt him in other ways? 

If they had coerced the acrobat into murder, it isn’t hard to imagine them stomping on his ribs, or shooting him, or doing any other manner of horrible things—

“Raven,” Peter murmurs, snapping her out of her dark thoughts. “It’s okay. It’s over now.”

He runs a hand through his hair, adding, “Besides, you fixed it. So it’s almost like it never happened… right?”

(That night, the edges of Raven’s dreams are blood-red.

She wakes with a resolve to keep Peter close, if only so someone will be there to stop him from committing such sins again.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to Titans (2018), Raven _can_ see Dick's memories in the form of dreams!
> 
> On Dick's injuries: you may recall that in Chapter 1, he was nursing a set of cracked ribs, and in Chapter 3, he mentioned that his ribcage was damaged. This is not because of his night job; it's because he frequently got the shit beaten out of him by Deathstroke. Apprentice 1-2 and Aftershock 1-2 make it pretty clear that Slade doesn't care about his proteges.


	12. Coldplay - Viva la Vida

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Act II (Stability) - Part V: Terminal Velocity
> 
> A routine fight with Jump's Rogues turns treacherous, and Dick takes Cyborg to the city's Bat safehouse. There, they run into Red X, who is starting to wonder where Dick has been for the past six years...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! This chapter has a special POV!
> 
> CW: Injury.

_For some reason I can’t explain, I know St. Peter won’t call my name._

The day after Dick’s most recent brush with death, he is woken by Starfire knocking on his door.

"Friend Peter!" She calls cheerfully. "Cyborg is making breakfast. Please join us!"

"Coming, Star!" He replies, untangling himself from his covers. Slowly, he shuffles out of bed and stands. His back twinges. From experience, Dick knows it's nothing more than phantom pain— his body reacting to an injury that is no longer there.

Because Raven had healed it.

 _I wonder what she really is,_ Dick thinks, stepping into the bathroom. _I'm sure that Beast Boy is your garden variety meta, and Cyborg is… well, he's a cyborg. Starfire is probably an alien, though I can’t guess which planet she’s from._

_But Raven is different. She speaks and acts like she was born on Earth, and if telekinesis was her only power, I'd say she’s a meta, like her boyfriend. However, she also has the ability to shadow-travel, and with healing on top of that… she might be an alien, too. One with powers as varied as Clark's. Either that, or she’s a magician like Zatanna._

"I guess it doesn't matter, though," the acrobat murmurs. Raven is his teammate, perhaps even his friend. If she wants to tell him about her origins, she will.

She just shouldn’t expect him to reciprocate.

Shaking away the thought, Dick changes into his costume and heads to the kitchen. There’s a plate on the counter, which he takes to the living room. There, the Titans are clustered around the table, throwing fruit at each other. The pieces that don’t wind up in someone’s mouth are caught in the grasp of Raven’s powers.

Amused, he plucks a blueberry off of his plate and tosses it at Starfire. She easily catches it, beaming at him with teeth dyed purple.

“Took you long enough,” Cyborg laughs. “We thought you’d fallen asleep in the shower.”

“One time,” complains Beast Boy. “You take a nap in the bathtub _one_ time, and no one lets you forget it.”

“Why were you sleeping in the bathtub?” Dick asks, sitting cross-legged on the floor and cutting into his pancakes.

“We’d just finished an extended mission with the Outsiders and I hadn’t slept in, like, two days, dude! I felt like it was time for a _siesta.”_

Dick pauses mid-bite. “Uh, who?”

“This bizarre group of teenagers that runs covert ops,” explains Raven. “They don’t usually work with others— had some falling out with the Justice League, if I’m not mistaken— but they make an exception for us, because one of our villains reformed and joined them.”

 _I am so out of the loop,_ Dick bemoans. _I need to do some research on who’s who in the hero game, ‘cause Gotham’s roster obviously isn’t the only one that’s changed._

A klaxon blares overhead. As one, the Titans toss their dishes aside and stand.

“What’s going on?” Beast Boy demands.

Cyborg starts tapping at his arm. “Mad Mod and Overload escaped Jump City Penitentiary approximately ten minutes ago. They were last spotted near the power plant!”

“If Overload were to infiltrate the power grid, it would be very bad,” Starfire says. “Let us go!”

She wrenches the window open and soars off. Beast Boy shifts into a pterodactyl, grabs Cyborg by the shoulders, and follows.

Dick reaches for Raven, silently requesting a lift. She shakes her head.

“I might be a trapeze artist, but I can’t actually fly, Raven,” Dick drawls. He’s not quite sure what’s going on. Why is she backing away?

“The team and I thought it’d be best to give you the day off,” Raven says. “You were hurt pretty badly last night. It scared us.”

Dick knows this, in an abstract sort of way. Starfire had remained at his side after he’d regained consciousness (never close enough to touch, bless her), and Raven had been near manic with concern. He thinks that his past wounds unsettled her. But if she’d felt those, then surely she knew that he’d had worse. _Much_ worse. And he’d had to heal _the normal way_ for all of it.

“I told you, it’s not a big deal,” he finally says.

Raven raises a hand, cutting off any further arguments. “Nope. You’re one of us, and we put it to a vote. 4-1: you’re staying home if we can help it.”

“One of— what?”

“It’s been two weeks, Peter. You haven’t left, so… we assumed you wanted to stay. Were we wrong?”

Honestly, Dick hadn’t even noticed that his self-imposed deadline had passed. He stares at her, stunned, until she gets a ping from Starfire and vanishes.

Dick blinks at the space where the heroine had been. With a shaky breath, he pulls himself together and gathers up the dishes. Once everything’s soaking in the sink, he retrieves the laptop Cyborg had graciously provided him with and settles on the couch. If he’s not allowed to join the team, he might as well find the answers to his questions. 

But first, Dick turns on the TV, searching for a suitable source of background noise. _That’s a sitcom, those are infomercials— oh, god, is that_ Bruce? _Moving on…_

He finally settles on a rerun of Bones. It’s an interesting show, but he’s got better things to do.

Using one of Cyborg’s programs, he enters the Justice League’s servers. He’ll be careful— he doesn’t want Cyborg to take the fall for his intrusion— but truth be told, the Justice League’s network isn’t nearly as secure as the Bats’. Oh, sure, the base code of the security system is the same, but the Batcomputer has been through a series of updates that the Watchtower’s system simply… hasn’t.

Humming, Dick pulls up the League’s current roster. Names and aliases are paired with zeta designations, all in neat rows. Dick’s eyes widen as he takes in the changes. Barry Allen’s status has been shifted to Code Black Only, meaning he’s not to be disturbed unless there’s a full-blown apocalypse. There are two new Green Lanterns, John Stewart and Guy Gardner. And there are heroes he’s never heard of. Who is Booster Gold? Black Lightning? Plastic Man? Icon?

Dick frowns and shifts to the roster of a team called Young Justice. This list, unlike the League roster, is alphabetized. They must not have zeta access.

His eyes trail down the column of names. _Arrowette is likely Oliver’s protege. Cardinal is one of Bruce’s. I’ve never heard of Empress, Impulse, or Secret. Miss Martian and Superboy must be related to J’onn and Clark, respectively._

At the bottom of the list is a name that makes his lungs seize. _Wonder Girl._

Dick taps on the link and pulls up her file without a second thought. His heart sinks as he looks at the picture in the top right corner. It’s not Donna. She must’ve given her name to another Amazon.

At that, the acrobat lets his mind drift. Where _is_ Donna? Where are Wally, Roy, and Garth? Are they still heroes? He knew that Wally wanted to go to college, and he knew that Roy had no interest in running Queen Industries. He knew that Garth and Donna had responsibilities in their homelands. But he didn’t know where they were now. 

He didn’t know if they were okay.

On the TV, a dispassionate announcer drones on. _Common side effects include nervousness, insomnia, nausea, agitation, anxiety…_

 _Story of my life,_ Dick thinks wryly. _I’m certainly anxious right now._

His communicator screeches, making him jump. He wedges it between his ear and his shoulder as his fingers fly over the keyboard. Files vanish, windows close, and the laptop shuts down.

“What’s up, Beast Boy?” Dick asks, taking the laptop and unceremoniously dumping it into the sink. The device shorts out.

“We got another alert from the jail! Plasmus broke out! But we can’t go— we’re still fighting Mad Mod and Overload!”

“I’m on it,” Dick says. He squashes the guilt in his chest, scurries into his room with the sopping laptop tucked under his arm, and starts stocking up on heavy-duty explosives.

“Hold up, man! I’m not gonna let you fight him alone,” Cyborg says. “Cover me, Star!”

 _They’re so overprotective,_ Dick thinks. If it weren’t so stifling, he’d feel loved. 

Instead of commenting on it, he simply says, “Send me the location!” and jumps out of the open window. 

-

It doesn't take long for Dick to rendezvous with Cyborg, who is trying to corral Plasmus in a residential area. Most of the civilians have already fled, with only a few stragglers still lingering, so Dick is free to toss a grenade down the villain's throat.

He spits it back out, totaling a car. Dick scowls.

"That was pointless. How do you guys usually deal with him?"

"It usually boils down to luck," Cyborg says. Raising his arm, he fires at Plasmus, who shakes off the attack and charges towards them.

Dick launches himself to the side. Cyborg attempts to do the same, but his foot gets caught in the wreckage of the car, and he stumbles. 

Plasmus smashes through his left arm and leg.

Crying out in alarm, Dick throws half of his explosives in the villain's direction and runs for his teammate. He grabs Cyborg and lets the other boy use him as a crutch. They escape while the smoke still hangs heavy in the air.

Panting, Dick pulls Cyborg into an alcove. "Are you okay? Do you need a hospital?"

"No, it was all mechanical damage. But I can't walk, man! What are we gonna do?"

Dick lowers his gaze. His explosives don't do as much damage as he'd hoped, and with the other Titans still occupied, retreat is their only option. But they can't return to the compound, so where are they supposed to go?

The acrobat glances from side to side, his mind racing. Should he break into an apartment?

_Wait. I don't need to terrorize some random person. Bruce's safehouse is nearby._

"Hold on to me," he orders, hustling Cyborg down the alley, up a fire escape, and towards a window.

As Dick jimmies it open, he hears the sound of water bubbling and realizes that someone is in the safehouse. Hopefully, it’s Jason. But if it isn’t…

He pulls Cyborg into the apartment and readies himself for another fight.

* * *

Jason has just put the kettle on and retreated to his room to change when he hears the window being opened. Hissing in frustration, he pastes a domino over his eyes and pulls the ‘hood’ part of his mask down.

 _Who is stupid enough to rob this place?_ Who? _I’m damn sure the entire apartment complex knows that I live here,_ the thief complains to himself. He retrieves his gun from the side table and thumbs off the safety, creeping into the living room as quietly as he dares.

What he sees nearly makes him drop the weapon.

It’s Dick and Cyborg. As Jason watches, the acrobat helps his new teammate— who is covered in purple detritus and missing most of his left arm and leg— onto the couch.

“What the hell,” Jason sighs, holstering his weapon. Cyborg startles and pitches off the furniture; Dick leaps backwards to avoid being crushed.

“Hello, X,” he says. “Mind giving me a hand? He’s heavy.”

“Why would _Red X_ help us? Man, he’s crazy!” Cyborg retorts.

“Fuck you too, you bucket of bolts,” Jason sneers, joining his fellow ex-Bat. Together, the two boys manage to haul Cyborg back onto the couch. Jason whines internally when sparks and goo drop onto the upholstery, scorching dark circles into the fabric. He does _not_ have the money for another sofa in his budget.

“I’m gonna have to rob American Furniture Warehouse,” he mutters. Dick snorts and takes him by the arm, dragging him into the bedroom. Over his shoulder, the acrobat calls,

“Try pinging Raven! If she and the others are through with the villains, they can come pick us up!”

“And what are you gonna do?!”

“Negotiate a truce!” Dick lies, kicking the door shut.

Jason shrugs off the older boy’s hand. “What the fuck, Goldie? I’m gonna have to ditch this place!”

“Don’t. I have no other way of tracking or contacting you, and I’d like to know where my baby brother spends most of his time.”

“So plant a tracer on me and _call it a night,”_ Jason snaps. “And fuck off with that baby brother shit. We’ve seen each other _once_ in the past six years.”

“Which was mostly my fault, I’ll admit,” Dick says evenly. “But we didn’t stop being brothers, Jason. Legally or otherwise.”

“I died. I think that means I’m free of legal obligations,” Jason huffs. 

“Is that why you turned to crime?”

“Did I not explain my reasoning? I’m going to murder that clown, and I need money and weapons to do it. End of story.”

Dick leans against the wall and crosses his arms. “Fair enough. As long as you have a plan, I won’t lift a finger to stop you. Lord knows that my hands aren’t clean.”

Jason blinks in surprise. _I thought what he said back then was a fluke, but this is the second time he's given me per— wait a minute. Is he suggesting that he_ killed someone? _What the fuck?_

“Dick… where have you been?” He asks slowly, eyes fixed on the acrobat’s face. There’s a pale scar across his right cheek that Jason has never noticed before.

All of Jason’s scars were washed away by the Lazarus Pit. He used to be angry about it; it made him feel like his body wasn’t _his_ anymore. But, he thinks as he watches Dick absentmindedly press a fingertip to the mark, maybe it’s a good thing that he doesn’t have his trauma written across his skin.

“I was never in one place for long. But I was in and out of Jump City a lot. It’s where everything began… and where it all ended.”

And just what the fuck is Jason supposed to do with _that?_ He’s opening his mouth to demand a proper explanation when all the shadows in the room flicker. 

Dick’s head snaps up. “That’s Raven. We have to go. I’ll talk to you later, Jay.”

He strides into the living room. Jason follows, just in time to see a massive bird wrap its wings around the Titans and spirit them away.

The thief sits on the couch, feeling sick to his stomach.

In the kitchen, the kettle whistles.

[END OF ACT II - STABILITY]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jason started wearing a domino mask underneath the skull mask after his meeting with Dick in Chapter 9.
> 
> Dick doesn't know anything about the Titans' origins, which is hilarious when you consider how wild their backstories are.
> 
> Dick inadvertently answers his question about the Outsiders (who, by the way, are neither the comics Outsiders nor the YJ Animated Outsiders) by asking more questions.


	13. KOPS - Salvation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Act III (Spiral) - Part I: Apex
> 
> Dick has another terrible day, but this time, it isn't his fault.
> 
> Featuring a blast from the past, a wild Jason, and an impossible choice.
> 
> THIS IS UPDATE 1 OF 2.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I apologize for vanishing. If it's any consolation, "Salvation" is the longest chapter I've ever written (for anything), and you won't have to wait long for Chapter 14!
> 
> CW: Canon-typical violence, a panic attack, and dissociation.
> 
> Note— The Dr. Roquette mentioned in this chapter is the scientist the Team is assigned to protect in Young Justice s01ep06 - "Infiltrator."

_I met my darkest hour._

_It smiled._

“You bastard! I can’t believe you killed him!” Cyborg cries. 

“He never had a chance. And you’re next.”

“Run, Cy,” whispers Beast Boy. “Don’t let him get you.”

Dick lines up the shot and fires. 

The controller falls from Cyborg’s fingers. 

_MATCH ENDED. VICTORY: PLAYER ONE,_ announces the television.

“Dude, how are you so good at this?” Beast Boy complains. “Do you know how many hours I’ve logged on this game? Like, thousands!”

The acrobat shrugs and sets his controller aside. Truth is, this game uses a lot of real-world knowledge. It’s not the kind of knowledge _ordinary_ people have, but Dick isn’t an ordinary person. He’s a person who can assemble a rifle, shoot a mark, and disappear without a trace— all in the span of ten minutes. A game called “Ultimate Assassin” is, unfortunately, right up his alley.

He should be more unnerved by the violence, fantasy or not. But… playing video games is something he used to do with Taylor. The other acrobat had fallen in love with an arcade in Blue Valley, and ever since then, she’d made it a point to drag Dick to as many game corners as possible. 

If Dick tries, he can still remember her smile, shaded with neon lights. Her hand, pressing tokens into his. Ribbons of tickets wrapped around their wrists, a dozen prizes shuffled into suitcases and traded over silly contests a day, a week, a month later.

He really misses her.

Having sensed the sudden drop in Dick’s mood, Beast Boy bounces to his feet, saying, “Hey, we should get the girls and play something else. Cards Against Humanity, anyone?”

“Star will kick all of our asses,” Cyborg warns.

“Thought that CAH would be more up Raven’s alley,” Dick muses. He knows better than to underestimate Starfire, but he hadn’t expected her to excel at a game made _for horrible people._

“Yeah, so does everyone else. Then Starfire comes out of left field with ‘Maybe she’s born with it. Maybe it’s dead parents.’ I still have a photo of Jinx’s face when she realized who had played that.”

“You think _her_ reaction was funny? Man, you should’ve seen Li—”

Cyborg is cut off by the wail of an alarm. Red light floods the room, and Raven drops through the ceiling, calling, “Multiple villains have broken out of jail!”

“Friends, I also have bad news,” says Starfire, soaring in through an open window. “There is a riot downtown. What should we do?”

Without stopping to consider his role on the team, Dick starts delegating tasks. “Raven, you’re great with crowd control; head into the city and quell the horde. The rest of us can split up and defeat the villains. Beast Boy, can you figure out who escaped?”

“Already on it! Looks like Phobia is behind the riot. Puppet King, Kwiz Kid, and Trident are free, too— and Trident’s already causing chaos in the bay!”

“Kwiz Kid and Puppet King are no big deal; I’ll take care of them,” Cyborg says. “Starfire, you and Nighthawk gotta keep Trident under control until I can contact the Outsiders.”

“Uh, before we go,” Dick says, scrolling through the notifications pouring into their system. “Someone called Sergeant HIVE is with Phobia, and he’s got friends.”

“Damn it!” Raven hisses. She turns to Dick, saying, “Hand-to-hand is HIVE’s bread and butter. I’ve never been that great at physical combat, and if I'm fending him off while battling Phobia, I won't stand a chance. You need to come with me.”

Dick nods in acceptance. Darkness envelops them, and they materialize in the midst of the riot. A woman clad in black and green— Phobia, presumably— cackles in delight and pounces on Raven.

Dick ducks and weaves through the crowd, quickly realizing that none of the townspeople seem to be interested in attacking him. They’re all screaming and swinging wildly… much like Scarecrow’s victims.

 _Well, that tracks with her name. But if she’s a meta, then there’s no antitoxin that can help them,_ Dick thinks. He sidesteps a vicious swipe and spots Sergeant HIVE. The bulky man is flanked by a cluster of lieutenants, all of whom look far too pleased with the chaos surrounding them.

“…proof that people _are_ ‘dumb, panicky, dangerous animals,’” the villain is saying. He raises a hexagonal shield, evidently on the verge of an inspiring speech.

Dick doesn’t have the time for that. With a quick apology to the nearby civilians, he flings a trio of smoke bombs. The lieutenants start coughing and flailing about; HIVE himself slaps a mask over his mouth, shouting, “Show yourself, coward!”

“If you insist,” Dick replies. He darts past HIVE, neatly avoiding his outstretched hand, and takes out two of the villain’s lackeys with jabs from his electrified escrima rods. The third clips him with a punch. Dick rewards him by activating an ice grenade and flips out of the path of HIVE’s shield. Thinking fast, the acrobat catches it on the rebound and slams it over the last lieutenant’s head. 

HIVE roars in fury and engages. Dick blocks his first two blows, but takes a knee to the gut that leaves him wheezing. He recovers in time to avoid a knife to the eye; the blade leaves a shallow cut above his right eyebrow, and Dick realizes he’s struggling for the first time since he joined the team.

 _The problem with the Titans’ villains,_ Dick muses as he handsprings away from the Sergeant’s attacks, _is that most of them are useless when you take away their powers or gimmicks. But this guy? He’s a world-class fighter, and I might be better at hand-to-hand than Raven, but I’m nowhere near the level I was when I was with Bruce._

_Or when I was with Slade._

Gritting his teeth, the acrobat nails HIVE in the nose with one of his escrima rods. The villain retaliates by kicking Dick directly into a lamppost. He cries out as his back slams into the metal, but he gets no reprieve; HIVE aims a haymaker at his throat, forcing Dick to dive aside.

“Stop scurrying around like an ant,” the villain growls. He withdraws a billy club from his belt, but before he has the chance to raise it, a beam of black light strikes him squarely in the back of his head.

HIVE crumples to the ground. Dick looks up and locks eyes with Raven, who is extending her hands toward the crowd. The people fall silent, and calm permeates the air.

“Go now. Be at peace,” says the sorceress. To Dick’s surprise, they all obey.

 _She’s an empath, too? Hell, if she can do that on top of everything else, it's not surprising she doesn't practice hand-to-hand. She doesn't_ need _it,_ Dick thinks. He gets to his feet, saying, “Thanks for the assist. What’d you do with Phobia?”

“Knocked her out and handcuffed her to a parking meter. Come on. Star’s in trouble, and Tempest won’t be here for another twenty minutes.”

Dick has no idea who Tempest is, and he doesn’t get to find out.

Two blocks away, an echoing boom sounds. It’s followed by a chorus of terrified screams. Abandoning the unconscious villains, Dick and Raven spin on their heels and head for the scene of the new crime.

They find an android tearing its way through a building. The composition of its skin changes with each thing it touches, and Dick watches in horror as it becomes a concrete and steel behemoth.

“That— that looks like an Amazo.” 

“A what?” Raven asks, entrapping the beast in a bubble.

“Bad news,” the acrobat says grimly. The last time he’d had to deal with one, his team had gotten lucky. Roy and Donna had trapped it between two states, and Wally had shoved his hand into its chest, causing it to explode.

But Speedy, Wonder Girl, and Kid Flash aren’t here right now. It’s just Dick and Raven, and they don’t have any backup.

“We have to keep it from hurting the civilians,” Dick finally orders. “But it’s not gonna be easy. You ready?”

Raven nods, and with a twist of her fingers, she lowers her shield.

-

It takes three hours and the eventual arrival of the other three Titans to defeat the white monster. The instant it’s been carted away by the police, Raven transports them all back to the compound.

Dick slumps against the wall, swiping the back of his hand over his bloody forehead. He wants nothing more than to dissolve into a puddle on the carpet, but their work isn't done yet. “What about the other villains? And cleanup?”

“Tempest, Bumblebee, and Más y Menos are taking care of it,” Beast Boy groans. He shifts into a cat and promptly falls asleep on the arm of the couch.

“I am famished,” Starfire complains. She floats into the kitchen, asking, “Does anyone else wish to eat?”

Dick belatedly realizes that he, too, is starving. “Can you heat up the leftover Chinese food for me?”

Starfire places the styrofoam container into the microwave, narrowly avoiding Raven, who is making tea with her powers. She raises her eyebrow at Dick. He nods in response to her silent question, and she sends a cup of chamomile his way. He clambers onto the counter to drink it.

“My arm is on the fritz,” Cyborg sighs. “Peter, by any chance, is there a screwdriver near you?”

The acrobat glances over his shoulder and spots a screwdriver under a package of Oreos. He tosses it to the cybernetic teen, who starts tinkering with his limb.

After a few minutes of distracted slurping, Dick has drained the entire cup. He stares at the bottom of the mug, acutely aware of each bump, bruise, and scrape, and comes to a damning realization: _I haven't felt this battered since my last Arkham breakout._

A slightly hysterical laugh escapes him. "What the hell was that about?"

“I have no idea,” Raven says. “Criminals have been… antsy lately.”

“Yes, but not to this extent. And the white monster was a new enemy,” Starfire points out.

Cyborg sets the screwdriver next to Beast Boy, who continues snoring. “I don’t know what to tell you, guys. But it’s over, so—”

The alarm starts to shriek again. With a yowl, Beast Boy tumbles off the sofa and comes back up as a chicken.

“What now?” Raven hisses. She flies past her befuddled boyfriend and pulls up the city’s CCTV feeds.

Dick sets his cup aside, leaps off the counter, and joins her. “There’s been an explosion in the park. No casualties, but a few trees are on fire.”

“The incident does not seem to be dangerous, so there is no need for all of us to go. I will fly there alone,” Starfire decides. “You should rest, my friends.”

“Are you sure, Star?” Cyborg asks. 

“Positive. I shall contact you if I need assistance.”

With that, the alien leaves. Beast Boy yawns and returns to his nap.

Sighing heavily, Dick says, “I’m going to go shower and patch up my injuries. Call if you need me.”

He returns to his room, strips out of his armor, and steps into the bathroom. This time, when he winces at his reflection, it’s because of how injured he is.

_I've been slacking off. But I can't afford to do that, not now._

Shaking his head, Dick quickly scrubs the sweat and blood off his skin. Following that, he bandages his cuts, spreads copious amounts of tiger balm over his bruises, and heads back to his desk to clean his armor. Without the specialty supplies from the Batcave, he’s reduced to attacking the built-up grime with Clorox wipes. 

No sooner than he has finished disinfecting the mask does the alarm ring again.

Cursing, Dick shimmies back into the costume and races to the living room. “What the fuck is going on?”

“Another explosion,” Cyborg says. “This one was at a ritzy restaurant.”

“Oh my god. Was anyone inside?” Beast Boy demands. He’s clearly given up on sleeping, his whole body coiled tight with tension.

“Nah, it was closed for renovation. But the whole building’s busted, so they’re out of business for the foreseeable future.”

“Did Starfire find anything at the site of the first attack?” Dick asks.

“Nope. Want me to send her to the restaurant?” 

“Sure. Beast Boy, meet her there. Maybe we’ll get lucky this time.”

The shapeshifter nods and changes into a falcon. He leaves the compound just as Raven steps into the room.

“Was there another attack? Where and why?” She asks, drifting over to the boys.

“At Red Sun Bistro. We don’t know the motive.”

“Hm. That place is expensive,” Raven comments. “I went there with Beast Boy and spent _three hundred dollars._ On a plate _the size of my hand_.”

 _Sounds like the restaurants Bruce’s business partners drag him to,_ Dick thinks. He remembers the man complaining about the size of the portions to Alfred, to which the butler rolled his eyes and said, _Perhaps if you spent less time running over rooftops and punching giant crocodiles, Master Bruce, you would not need to eat 10000 calories a day._

He pushes the thought aside and activates the comms. “Hey, Star, Beast Boy. Have you guys found anything?”

“There is nothing here, friend Nighthawk. The assailant planted the bombs and vanished. I am most vexed.”

“Gotta say, I don’t think they’re looking to hurt anyone,” Beast Boy chimes in. “The mall across the street from Red Sun was packed, but it wasn’t in the blast radius.”

“You’re saying someone is doing this for _fun?”_ Raven queries, crossing her arms in disapproval.

“Wouldn’t be the first time— holy shit!”

“BB! What’s going on?!”

“Another explosion! Right in front of the Hyatt!”

“You gotta be kidding me,” Dick says. As the words leave his mouth, something stirs at the edges of his memory. The places that were attacked, the order they were hit in… it's familiar. It's important.

The acrobat slips out of the commons and sneaks into Cyborg's room. He weaves around the heaps of machinery, seeking a laptop to replace the one he destroyed. He finds one on a rickety shelf, flips it open, and bypasses the password prompt with a trick Bruce taught him. 

_I can't risk hacking the Batcomputer. But the newspaper might have the report I'm looking for._

It takes Dick nine minutes of frantic scrolling to find the article he wants. 

**THE GOTHAM GAZETTE**

**Thursday, May 18th, 2011**

**Riddler's Plot Foiled By Batman, Robin, and… Bluejay?**

**By Vicki Vale**

Yesterday, Gotham’s iconic crime-fighting duo, Batman and Robin, foiled the Riddler’s latest plot to destroy the city. This time, however, they were joined by a third party: a young boy dubbed “Bluejay” by our partners at News Channel 14.

Riddler put his plan into action two days after escaping Arkham Asylum. He began by setting off a bomb at a park in the Diamond District. This explosion was followed by three others— the next at a five-star restaurant, the third at Hotel Magnifique, and the last at the Gotham City Opera House. It was there that Bluejay caught up with the Riddler, and after defeating most of his henchmen, he was joined by Batman and Robin, who took the villain into custody… 

_It’s Jason,_ Dick realizes, staring at the headline. _Jason’s doing this. But he’s not just causing chaos—_ _he’s trying to get my attention._

Well, he has it. Dick pulls up a map of Jump City. There’s a theater near the bay.

_Since Riddler hit those places at certain intervals, I don’t have long to find Jason. He’ll only be at the opera house for another sixteen minutes._

Dick shuts the laptop and returns to the living room, a hasty plan taking shape in his mind. He’ll convince the remaining Titans to split up and search the streets. Once that’s done, he can break into the opera house.

“Hey, guys,” he says, draping himself over the back of the couch. “I have an idea…”

* * *

After the others have been scattered across the city, Dick takes a hesitant step into Jump City’s Opera Theater. Dust swirls into the air as he pads across the red carpet. No one has been here in years.

No one, that is, except Jason.

His brother waits at the window, the edge of his dark cape twisted in his fist. He turns at the sound of Dick’s footsteps.

"You figured it out," Jason says by way of greeting. "I wasn't sure if you'd remember."

"Of course I do. That was your first case," Dick replies. "You were so proud of pulling one over on Nygma."

Jason laughs and turns back toward the windows. "I was. I also remember calling that the best day of my life. But if I hadn't been Bluejay, I wouldn't have died."

"I'm sorry," Dick murmurs, stepping into the other boy's space. "I really am sorry, Jay. That I wasn't there, that I couldn't help, that Bruce and I put you in that position in the first place."

"I wanted to be Bluejay more than anything. My dumb choices landed me in the Joker's hands, not yours," Jason replies dismissively. "I _am_ holding Bruce accountable for not killing the clown, though. After Barbie, after me, after hundreds and thousands of innocent people… he would be doing the world a favor."

"You know he won't. Not for you, not for me or Babs or _anyone._ But you didn't call me to discuss Batman's moral code."

"No," says Jason, suddenly serious, "I didn't. I have a question for you."

"What?" Dick asks, raising an eyebrow. He can't imagine what kind of question would prompt Jason to try getting his attention like this.

"Why is Deathstroke the Terminator looking for you?"

All the blood in Dick’s veins turns to ice. 

“Deathstroke is dead,” he insists. “He’s supposed to be—”

“Uh, rumors of his death have been _greatly_ exaggerated. The Terminator has been a busy bee, stirring up all the gangs and petty criminals in the city. He’s trying to draw _you_ out. I just don’t understand why.”

“I—” _have never had to explain this before. I don’t_ want _to explain this._

_I don’t know where to begin._

“Dick,” Jason whispers, kneeling down. Why does his voice sound so far away? When did Dick end up on the floor? And are those really his fingers, tangled in the red fibers of the carpet? “Dick, breathe!”

He sucks in one ragged breath, then another. Jason's words sound like static crackling in his ears. By the time the acrobat comes back to himself, his brother has wrapped him in his cape and is seated cross-legged in front of him. 

“Are you okay?” He asks, peering at Dick through his eyelashes. His masks dangle from his fingers, crimson and black against his pale brown skin.

“Since when are your eyes green?” Dick rasps in lieu of answering the question. 

(He’s sure Jason’s smart enough to figure out the answer, anyway.)

“Since I took a dip in Ra’s’ freaky Jacuzzi. But seriously, Dick, what the hell is going on? Does this have to do with the time you were missing?”

 _Again with that fucking question._ Dick curses Bruce. Was it not amusing enough to sic a flock of brightly dressed children on Gotham’s worst citizens? Why’d he have to raise a bunch of _detectives?_ Fiddling with an escrima rod, he says,

“My departure from the Manor was carefully planned. I waited until Bruce was off-world. I stole an artifact of Zatanna’s that prevented magical tracking. And as I moved across the country, I stayed in the most heavily trafficked places I could find, so Clark and J’onn wouldn’t be able to locate me. Eventually, I ended up in Jump City.

“I didn’t plan on sticking around. Jump is right between Coast and Star; there was a high chance I’d run into Hal or one of the Arrows if I stayed. But then I got into a scuffle with a couple of muggers, and someone saw.”

“Deathstroke?” 

Dick closes his eyes. "Yeah."

 **Six years ago…**

_Someone was following him._

_They weren’t being subtle at all. Dick gritted his teeth, his eyes flicking from left to right. There were plenty of alleys for him to hide in: he just had to pick the right one._

_He didn’t get the chance. The person stalking him grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. Dick moved with the momentum, turning a glare on his attacker._

_It was a broad-shouldered man. He sported an unshaven face, a dark grin, and a .22 pistol._

_“Hey, kid. I’ve got a favor to ask.”_

Well, that’s disgusting— shit! _Dick thought, watching as two more armed men emerged from the shadows. In seconds, he was surrounded._

_The acrobat took a deep breath. He was Robin, even if he’d ditched the cape and tights. He could handle these bastards._

_When the first man reached for him again, Dick grabbed his wrist, sidestepped, and rammed his knee into his opponent’s elbow. There was a sharp crunch and a howl of pain._

_Before the whimpering man’s lackeys had a chance to react, Dick divested him of his .22 and fired. The bullet hit the second man’s knife, knocking it out of his hand._

_“I’ll hit you next,” the acrobat warned, leveling the weapon at the third man’s chest. His stomach twisted at the thought— he didn’t actually want to shoot anyone. He’d never even fired a gun before._

_Bruce wouldn’t have allowed it._

_Luckily, they didn’t realize that he was bluffing. All three men bolted, leaving Dick in the middle of the street. He dismantled the gun, tossed the parts aside, and kept walking._

_His footsteps echoed, making him shiver. He hated the stillness. It wasn’t just because silence was a prelude to violence; it was because for as long as Dick had lived, his surroundings had been full of life. And with that came noise— bright and cheerful, like he used to be._

_So lost was Dick in his thoughts that he didn’t notice the person in front of him until he crashed into them. The impact knocked their phone out of their hand, and Dick swore to himself as it shattered on the concrete._

_“I am so sorry,” he gasped, glancing up at the device’s owner._

_It was an elderly man, one who reminded him, oddly, of Alfred. He bent down and plucked the phone off of the ground, saying, “Worry not. It can be fixed.”_

_“Still, I’m really sorry. I would offer to pay for it—”_ but I can’t access my trust fund at the moment. Or ever again.

_“That’s unnecessary, my boy. You seem to be in more dire straits than I. Would you allow me to offer you a hot meal?”_

_Dick recoiled. “You know how sketchy that sounds, right?”_

_“Fair enough,” the man laughed. “If you change your mind, come to the diner at the corner of Himmel and 66th.”_

_With that, he walked off._

_Dick blinked at his retreating back. Once he had vanished, the acrobat hurriedly scampered up a fire escape and took refuge on a rooftop._

_He thought he’d successfully put the encounter out of his mind. But a few days later, he spotted the diner the man had mentioned._

_He bit his lip._ That offer was weird. But I’m low on cash, and that guy might be willing to feed me for free. Jason always said that ignoring the opportunity for free food was fucking dumb.

_Steeling himself, he stepped into the diner. The old man stood behind the counter, polishing a glass. He looked up and smiled at Dick (in stark contrast to the diner’s only other occupant, who did not so much as glance his way)._

_“Hi,” Dick said hesitantly. “Does your offer still stand?”_

_“Certainly, my boy. Take a seat,” said the man._

_Dick surveyed the room and realized that the most advantageous table— the one with a view of all entrances and exits— was occupied by the aforementioned customer. The acrobat took a seat at the next table over and waited._

_Before long, the elderly waiter emerged with a plate and a glass of iced tea. He set it on the table, cheerfully explaining, “This is the daily special. I hope you enjoy it.”_

_“Thanks,” Dick said. He took a cautious bite of the sandwich, and after determining that it was satisfactory, crammed the entire thing into his mouth._

_The waiter, who had lingered by Dick’s table, suddenly spoke. “He reminds me of you.”_

_“Uh, what?” Dick asked._

_“My apologies. This is an old friend of mine,” the waiter explained, gesturing towards the other table. “Introduce yourself, you lout.”_

_Said ‘lout’ raised his head. Years of looking Joker and Killer Croc in the face were all that prevented Dick from flinching; the waiter’s friend was missing an eye. The patch covering the wound did not obscure the scars trailing down his cheek._

_“I’m Slade. Happy, Wintergreen?”_

_‘Wintergreen’ raised an eyebrow, clearly disappointed, and his resemblance to Alfred grew stronger. Dick muffled a snicker and said,_

_“I’m Ric. Nice to meet you.”_

_“Yes. It is quite nice,” Slade said. His voice was smooth and dark, almost like an oil spill. “I was starting to wonder if I would need to take drastic measures to speak to you.”_

_“Speak… to_ me? _Why?” Dick said slowly._

_“I’m quite the entrepreneur, you see. And I’ve been in the market for an apprentice. Your little tete-a-tete with those fools a few nights ago convinced me that you fit the bill.”_

_“That’s very kind of you, but I’m really not one for business,” the acrobat stammered._

_“I think you misunderstand,” said Slade. He steepled his fingers and peered at Dick over his hands. “It wasn’t a request.”_

_Dick shot up out of his chair, only to stumble as his vision wavered. The drink he’d left on the edge of the table tumbled to the ground._

Drugged, _he realized._ They drugged me.

_His knees hit the floor, and the last thing he saw before his body failed him was Slade’s self-satisfied smile._

“I woke up in a warehouse,” Dick murmurs. “He told me it was time to train, and then he beat the shit out of me. Over and over again. I lost track of time.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Jason breathes. “And this went on for _six years?”_

“For three,” the acrobat corrects sharply. “I tried to escape. I tried so many times. He always caught me and dragged me right back into hell. Eventually, I realized that the only way out was for one of us to die. I thought it would be me. But I… surprised him.”

Someone is screaming, and that someone is him—

—he ignores the knife that tears through his cheek, the blow from the staff that cracks three of his ribs—

—he flees into the rafters and ambushes the mercenary when he isn’t expecting it—

—he hits him, over and over. His skin splits and his knuckles fracture. But the metal is denting; it’s working—

—and once his tormentor is finally, blessedly unconscious, he runs to the armory and falls upon the C4. When his prison explodes, the rage in his chest melts into relief.

"You blew up a warehouse while he was inside?" Jason asks. His grip on his masks tightens, and his eyes turn impossibly greener.

"Fuck. I'm sorry, I didn't think…"

“No,” Jason says, shaking his head. “The past is in the past, and unlike the _clown,_ you had a good reason to kill that bastard.”

"Still, it wasn't my finest moment," Dick murmurs. He wraps his arms around his knees and stares at the dust motes swirling through the air. "After that, I joined a circus. Not Haly's. Just a tiny outfit that traveled nationally."

"Were you happy?"

"Mostly," Dick says, unsure of what Jason's trying to get at with the question. 

"Then why didn't you stay? Why go back to being a hero?" His brother demands. "Shit, Goldie, you had an out!"

"So did you!" Dick counters. "You became Red X to get revenge. I became Nighthawk because my friend was _murdered._ I had to join the Titans to find out who killed her."

"Damn," Jason mutters, rocking back on his heels. "We must have the shittiest luck in the world."

"Yeah. Yeah, we probably do."

Jason glares at the floor for a few moments. Then he stands and replaces his masks, saying, "Watch your back, Dick. Your friends, too. Something tells me that Deathstroke won't give up until he gets what he wants."

 _Me._ “I know. Thanks for the heads up.” 

“I’m always happy to tell someone that their death is imminent. It just brightens my day.”

Dick snorts. Looks like Jason still uses sarcasm to hide his fear. “Good for you. Have you already disabled the bomb you hid in the theater, or am I playing hide and seek with explosives?”

"You can leave," his brother replies. "Truth is, I knew you'd figure it out, so I didn't plant one."

With that, Jason waves and somersaults out of the open window. 

Dick holds his breath, feeling the panic in his stomach churn. Eventually, he gets to his feet and returns to the compound. 

The Titans have been waiting long enough.

(From the roof of a nearby store, Tara Markov watches Richard Grayson and Red X go their separate ways. She taps the comm unit in her ear, laughing,

“Hey, Deathstroke. We don’t have to go after the Titans. There’s an easier option.”)

* * *

Three days later, Dick is abruptly woken by the ground trembling beneath him. He stumbles out of his chair— for once overwhelmingly grateful that he’d fallen asleep at his desk— and runs to the living room, where his teammates are gathered. All four of them are talking over each other.

“Is it an earthquake?”

“No, the seismic activity is too localized!”

“Perhaps it is another villain?”

“Dude, don’t say that! I still haven’t recovered from last time!”

Swearing under his breath, Cyborg pulls up a camera feed. Dick blanches when he sees the cause of the seismic activity; it’s a blonde girl, her hands glowing with yellow energy. With a snap of her fingers, an entire office tumbles into a sinkhole.

“Oh my god— go, go!” Cyborg shouts. Raven vanishes into the shadows, and Starfire streaks out of the window, becoming a red comet against the orange sky. The three boys rush to the garage and hastily pile into the T-Car. 

Cyborg floors it, and Dick braces himself against the door as the vehicle hits speeds he’s only experienced in the Batmobile. They arrive at the scene of the battle in less than five minutes… just in time to see Raven slam into a twenty-story building.

“Rae!” Beast Boy cries. He turns into an albatross and snatches her out of the air. She hangs limply in his grip, either winded or unconscious.

Dick bats the swirling dust out of his way and marches down the street, intent on finding the villain. With each step he takes, the sounds of combat grow louder. 

It doesn’t seem like Starfire is winning.

Cyborg falls into line behind him, his hand on his cannon. “I can barely see them with my infrared vision, but I think we’re close.”

“Then get ready,” Dick hisses.

The two heroes find their teammate sprawled on the sidewalk. Her golden skin is splattered with mud, and her chest is barely rising and falling. Dick presses his fingertips against her neck. He finds her pulse, but it’s weaker than it should be. 

“Fuck,” the acrobat mutters. He stands, telling Cyborg, “She’s hurt pretty badly.”

“Who the hell _is_ this girl?” 

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” a voice says slyly.

The boys spin around and brandish their weapons. They’re too slow— one of Dick’s escrima rods is knocked out of his hand by a sharp stone, and Cyborg goes down underneath a three-ton slab of earth. Dick backs away, desperately hoping that Beast Boy is still in the game. 

The shapeshifter never appears. Instead, the dust parts, revealing the girl. Her eyes are ice-cold, and her smile is razor sharp.

“You’re the one I was looking for. Let’s have a chat, shall we?”

Before the acrobat can react, the street opens, plunging him into the darkness below. He lands hard, his body sprawling awkwardly over the bricks, and can only watch in horror as the road seals back up.

The girl floats down on a boulder, the golden light of her powers illuminating the service tunnel. It casts eerie shadows across the both of them, and Dick is suddenly and painfully aware that down here, no one can hear him scream.

“Scared? I expected better from you, Renegade.”

Dick’s head snaps up and his grip tightens on his remaining escrima rod. “How do you know that name?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” She asks, “I’m your replacement.”

“No…” The acrobat whispers. _He took another apprentice._

“I’m Terra. I’d say it’s nice to meet you, but I’m feeling kinda underwhelmed right now.”

He gets to his feet, eyeing her warily. “Why are you doing this?”

“What, attacking the city? For a laugh,” Terra says. She takes a seat at the edge of her perch and swings her feet like a child. 

The action only makes her look more menacing.

“No. Why are you with _Deathstroke?”_ Dick spits the name like a curse. 

“I owe him,” snaps the young mercenary. “I saved his life, and he saved me back. Speaking of, didn’t he pluck you off the streets? You could stand to be a little more grateful.”

“I would’ve rather died than spend five minutes with him!” Dick shouts. He flips the switch on his escrima rod, causing blue lightning to lance up its surface.

“Well, that’s unfortunate. You’ll be spending a lotta time with us in the near future.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Pretending to be deep in thought, Terra taps her chin. “You have a brother. Red X, isn’t it? It’d be a real shame if something happened to him.”

“He can take care of himself,” Dick retorts. Despite his bold words, fear floods through him.

“No amount of fancy martial arts can save him from being torn apart by nanites.”

Dick launches himself at the villain, tackles her off the boulder, and slams her into the bricks. Pointing his sparking weapon at her throat, he demands, “Explain.”

Completely unconcerned with her current position, Terra laughs. “Deathstroke’s last mark was a doctor named Roquette. She invented this nifty little thing called The Fog— a nanotech weapon that can eat anything in its path. And a modified version of The Fog is currently swimming through your baby brother’s bloodstream.”

 _She’s not lying. God fucking help me, she’s not lying,_ Dick thinks. His grip on his weapon wavers. 

The apprentice promptly flings him aside. He sails into the opposite wall and crumples to the ground. She comes to stand before him, a collection of pointed stones trailing in her wake.

“If you don’t want him to die, you’ll rejoin Deathstroke. It’s that simple.”

Dick grits his teeth, trying in vain to suppress a sob. 

“See you tonight. I’m sure you know where to go,” Terra says with a mocking salute. 

One of the rocks shoots forward and slams into his temple. 

Dick’s vision goes black.

-

When he comes to, he finds Raven hovering over him. Shocked, he turns and catches sight of the sinkhole. Apparently, after knocking him out, Terra had dumped his body in the middle of the street.

“Careful. You may still be feeling the effects of that concussion,” Raven cautions as he sits up.

“I’m fine,” Dick lies. He’s the furthest thing from fine. “How are the others?”

“Everyone’s okay. Shaken. A little bruised. But I took away all their pain.”

Dick shakes his head in disbelief. “You’re our guardian angel. Gonna spirit me away?”

“I’m Satan’s daughter, but I can spirit you to the car,” replies the empath. She raises her hands, and they materialize near their vehicle. Starfire is sitting on the hood, looking nauseous; Cyborg is half-asleep in the driver’s seat; Beast Boy is anxiously staring at the dark sky. He returns to earth upon their arrival, saying,

“Thank god. We couldn’t find you, Peter. What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Dick says. _This_ is only a half-lie; he has no idea why Terra didn’t leave him in the tunnels. “She hit me with a rock, and I was out like a light.”

“Much as Raven and I were. All five of us were defeated far too easily. We must train,” Starfire decrees. “I will impart the teachings of the Okaaran warlords on all of you.”

“We can train later,” Cyborg says. “Right now, we’re better off returning to the compound and licking our wounds.”

Dick nods in acquiescence and slips into the backseat, followed by Beast Boy and the girls. They ride back to their home in silence.

The instant Cyborg pulls into the garage, the acrobat retreats to his room. He shuts the door and sits in the center of the floor, his breath coming in unsteady gasps. The reality of the situation spills over him like ice. Jason— and the Titans, undoubtedly— are in danger because of him. 

Because he had made a stupid mistake.

Because he couldn’t kill the one person he’d needed to kill.

Because he hadn’t had the decency to die instead.

He doesn’t know how long he stays there, staring at the wall. Eventually, the truth makes itself known: he only has one option. 

Dick closes his eyes, an old feeling of helplessness festering underneath his ribs. It seems that the years separating him and his demons mean nothing at all. Neither death nor distance had made a difference; Renegade is inescapable.

_But I can’t run away. If I don't do, then Jason dies._

His despair crystallizes into resolve. Quietly, Dick stands and creeps into Cyborg's bedroom, following the path he took days ago. He passes his teammate's slumbering form, tiptoes around a tangled mass of wires, and plucks the laptop from its resting place.

Returning to his room, he collapses into his desk chair. He pries his mask off his face and takes a shaky breath.

A red light starts blinking next to the camera.

“If you’re watching this,” Dick whispers, "I’m already gone…"

* * *

Deathstroke waits atop a parking garage. Once, there had been a warehouse here. Richard Grayson had blown that warehouse sky-high with C4. But, as cities do, Jump had healed.

Slade Wilson isn’t in the business of healing, though. He’s more interested in reopening old wounds and bleeding hope dry. It matters not that his ways had cost him the entirety of his first family. The future is upon him, and it feels… promising.

He hears the sound of someone approaching. The footsteps are light, the gait preternaturally rhythmic. The walk of an acrobat. Try as he might, Slade couldn’t replicate it, nor could he train it into Rose and Tara.

Then again, his first apprentice had always been one of a kind.

“Hello, little bird.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Sorry._


	14. Linkin Park - Shadow of the Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Act III (Spiral) - Part II: Descent
> 
> It's a beautiful day in Jump City. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and Nighthawk is missing.
> 
> THIS IS UPDATE 2 OF 2. READ KOPS - SALVATION FIRST.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I told you that you wouldn't have to wait long for this chapter!

_Sometimes, solutions aren't so simple._

_Sometimes, goodbye's the only way._

_And the sun will set for you._

Raven hovers in the air, basking in the morning light. Her eyes are closed, but the sun still paints the inside of her eyelids white and gold. 

It feels like it’s going to be a good day.

 **“Azarath, metrion, zinthos,”** she murmurs. **“Azarath, met—”**

Raven. You need to come inside. 

Scowling, she snaps, **Garfield, I’m in the middle of my morning meditation, and after what happened yesterday, I need it. Can’t this wait?**

No. Peter’s missing. 

“What?” Raven says aloud. She phases through the roof and drops into the kitchen. Her teammates are clustered around the counter, all of them looking harried.

“What do you mean, ‘Peter's missing?’” She demands.

"He's gone. Cleared out his room and vanished," Cyborg answers. "Starfire noticed when she went to say good morning."

The princess lowers her head, a frown marring her face. "I immediately knew something was wrong. Peter prefers to keep the door locked, but when I knocked, it swung open."

"Can you find him?" Garfield asks Raven.

"I can try," the demoness replies, closing her eyes and reaching out with her powers. 

Theoretically, Peter should be easy to locate. His emotions are unbelievably strong. But just as it was all those months ago, Raven fails to detect him. She furrows her brows, the feathers of her soul self rustling as they creep back underneath her skin. 

"I can't sense him. Granted, I couldn’t do it before, but it’s not a good sign."

"Why would he take off in the middle of the night? Dude, he didn't even leave a note!"

"Maybe he did— it just wasn’t on paper," Cyborg says. He hurries over to the computer terminal and switches it on.

 _You have one (1) new message,_ the system informs them. Cautiously, Cyborg presses play.

Peter’s face appears on the screen. Raven hears Garfield suck in a breath and sees Starfire covering her mouth with her hands. If she had any less self-control, she’d do the same— the acrobat looks like he's inches from death. His mask is missing, exposing his dull eyes, and he’s bitten his lip hard enough to make it bleed.

“If you’re watching this,” says Peter, “I’m already gone. I promise, I didn’t want to leave. But if I didn't, bad things would happen, and I… I can’t let them.”

He presses his fingertips to the cut on his forehead, shivering. “Sorry. I should start at the beginning.

“Once, there was a boy who loved to fly. When he and his family took a trip to Gotham, New Jersey, something happened. His parents were torn from the sky, and as he sat in a pool of their blood, he was approached by a man.

“Many years ago, the man witnessed the murder of his own parents. So, he knew exactly what the boy was going through, and he offered him the chance to bring a killer to justice.

“That man was Batman. That boy became his Robin. And that boy is me,” Peter finishes.

This time, Raven cannot conceal her surprise. Her jaw drops. Beside her, the other Titans stare at the screen with wide eyes.

Peter continues, “I was Robin for approximately five years. In that time, Batman and I were joined by Batgirl, and a boy named Bluejay. That’s what this is about. See, Bluejay died… but he came back. As Red X.”

“That sounds insane. I want off this ride,” Garfield says. Raven is inclined to agree, but nothing about Peter’s expression indicates that he’s lying. And she remembers hearing about Robin’s sudden disappearance and Bluejay’s death at the hands of the Joker. Hushing her boyfriend, she fixes her gaze on the acrobat’s wan face.

“A dangerous man has returned to Jump City. He is the reason that crime has spiked. He is the master of the girl that destroyed half the metropolitan area. And he has infected Red X with volatile nanites.” Peter pauses to take a deep breath. “I would do _anything_ to spare my brother the pain of dying again, so… I’m going to give that man what he wants.”

“What does he seek?” Starfire asks.

“Me,” Peter answers, smiling sadly. “He wants me, and I can’t refuse. And hopefully, as long as he’s got me, he’ll leave X and the rest of you alone.

“I want to thank you all. I insisted that I didn’t want to be a hero, but the truth is, I missed it. I love helping people. And joining you gave me the chance to be _good_ again. I'll forever be in your debt.”

He raises his hand. Before he switches the laptop off, he says, “One more thing. My name isn’t Peter. It’s Dick. You can laugh at that if you want.

“Goodbye.”

The video ends.

“Is that it? He’s just going to drop a bomb on us and disappear?” Garfield stammers. “What the hell?”

“If he is in danger, we cannot stay here. We must find him! And the Red X!”

“How are we supposed to do that?” Raven asks. “X is nearly impossible to track down, and Pet— Dick— has a massive head start.”

“Well, about that,” says Cyborg. “I think I might have an idea. Raven, do you remember when Plasmus broke me in half?”

“Unfortunately,” Raven mutters. She knows that Cyborg hadn’t even felt the injuries. But the damage had been extensive, and seeing as it had come on the heels of Dick’s near-death experience… well, it wasn’t a fun memory.

“Sorry, Rae, but you’re the only one that can take us to that apartment.”

 _Oh._ That’s _why he brought it up._ “Gotcha. Everyone, brace yourselves.”

Her soul self unfurls its wings and spirits the team away. 

They appear in the middle of Red X’s home. The boy, who had been sitting on the couch and eating his way through a party-size bag of Hot Cheetos, immediately snatches up a gun and fires. Cyborg wordlessly steps in front of Garfield. The bullet ricochets off his armor, forcing X to duck.

“What the hell are you doing here?” The thief snarls. He moves from the seat of the sofa to the arm, his body taut with stress. 

(Idly, Raven recalls that Dick perches on high surfaces in much the same way.)

“We are not here to fight,” Starfire says. “We require your assistance.”

“With what, finding Nemo? I’d think you five— wait.” Red X tilts his head, examining the group. 

Raven can pinpoint the exact second he realizes Dick isn’t there.

“Where is he.”

“I think you should come with us,” the demoness says. 

“I think the hell not!”

“Please,” pleads Starfire, “you may be in grave danger.”

“Just hear us out, dude. If it turns out to be bullshit, you can go brood like a gargoyle on any building you want, and we won’t even try to arrest you.”

X crosses his arms. “You have three minutes to explain. After that, I’m putting bullets in all of you.”

“We know that Nighthawk is your brother, Dick. He… left us.”

“He told you his _name?”_ The thief says in disbelief. “What kind of shit did he land himself in?”

“He said it had to do with that girl that attacked the city yesterday. He also said that you’d been infected with nanites, and that the person who did it could use them to kill you,” Cyborg explains.

“Nanites? How would— ah, shit.”

He pulls off his hood. Underneath it is another mask, this one similar to the domino Dick wears as Nighthawk. Carefully, the thief pulls his collar away from his neck, revealing a thin scrape.

“I got into a fight with a couple of drunks yesterday,” he murmurs. “I thought this was from a broken bottle, but it could’ve been from a needle. Plus, it all ended nice and neat, which most things don’t. So the chances that I actually am infected are… pretty fuckin’ high.”

“Does that mean you’ll come?” Raven asks. 

X hops off the couch and comes to a stop in front of her. “Do your thing, witch girl.”

Without further ado, Raven lets black energy pour out of her.

They materialize in the compound. Garfield appears at her side and watches X glare warily at Cyborg, who is setting up diagnostic equipment.

Are you sure this is a good idea? 

**It doesn't matter what I think, Garfield! Dick is in big trouble, and X is his brother. He deserves to be here.**

Yeah, but… I really don’t like him, Garfield thinks petulantly. His nails and teeth look sharper than they should, and Raven projects a wave of calm in his direction.

It shatters when X says, “What the fuck!” at the approximate pitch of a siren.

Raven glances at him and realizes that Cyborg had replayed Dick’s message while testing X’s blood. The thief is vibrating with anger and… fear. 

He knows _exactly_ what this is about.

Instead of demanding _What is going on? Who is the man Dick is talking about? Why does he want Dick?,_ the demoness drawls, “Didn’t we already explain his message?”

“You said he _left._ I thought that meant that he skipped town, not that he went back to that piece of shit!”

“And the piece of shit is…?” Garfield prompts.

“Like Goldie said, he’s trouble,” X replies. His body is coiled like a spring, and Raven is half-sure that he’s about to jump out of the window.

 _But who— or what— could possibly have this effect on him?_ She thinks.

Then, the demoness remembers every time that Dick flinched, and each jolt of panic that ran through him. She remembers bloody nightmares and the crooked edges of countless injuries. She remembers red, yellow, and green fading to orange, black, and silver. 

“It’s the person that hurt him, isn’t it?” Raven whispers. “The one who broke his bones, the one who made him…” _Kill._

X fidgets with his utility belt. “Yes. And Dick is a fucking idiot if he thinks that doing this will fix anything. The only way this ends is with him in the ground. Which isn’t a great place to be, even though Daddy Moneybags doesn’t skimp on the caskets.”

“What?” Cyborg says.

“Three inches of solid mahogany and a bed of satin. It was supposed to be comfortable, but breaking out took for-fucking-ever.”

There are so many things wrong with that statement. Raven presses her fingertips to her temples, trying to calm Wrath and Fear before they overtake her. 

“Can we have a name?” She asks.

“Deathstroke. A mercenary considered ‘the world’s greatest tactician.’ He captured Dick a long time ago, and Dick killed him in order to escape. Or so he thought. The day before I set off all those explosions—”

“That was you?” Garfield cries. “What the hell, dude?”

“I needed to fucking talk to Dick, okay? It’s not like I have his phone number!” defends the thief. “Anyway, I received information that Deathstroke was alive and looking for his old apprentice. I warned Goldie… but I guess he didn’t listen. Now, he’s back in hell.”

“Because he knew that freak wasn’t bluffing,” Cyborg says grimly. He pulls up the test results. Thousands of tiny machines are floating in X's blood. “These things can rip you apart from the inside out.”

“Jeez, that’d be worse than my first death!” X laughs. It sounds horrifically forced.

“What are we going to do?” Starfire asks. She’s long since stopped floating— there is no joy left in her.

“Deathstroke is no petty criminal. And the meta with him is powerful,” the thief muses. “Do you really wanna fight ‘em? It'd be a lot easier to let Dick go.”

Raven loses her grip on Wrath. Her second set of eyes opens, and she looms over the thief, snarling, “How can you be so callous? He’s your _brother._ He’s willing to die for you! And you’re writing him off?!”

X doesn’t look scared in the slightest. He _smiles_ at her, replying,

“That’s what I hoped you’d say. Come on. We’re gonna get him back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (These notes apply to both Chapter 13 and Chapter 14.)
> 
> The Teen Titans Animated Series gave Terra far more pathos than she had in Tales of the Teen Titans (1984). This incarnation of her is closer to the latter one. Sorry to any fans of the character— she's actually quite sweet in the cartoon, and upon rewatching it, I definitely sympathized with her.
> 
> Thank you for your patience!


	15. Battle Tapes - Sleepwalker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Act III (Spiral) - Part III: Acceleration
> 
> In which battles are fought, truths are revealed, and the Renegade is reborn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! This is a short chapter, but it is a pivotal one. 
> 
> CW: Canon-typical violence and dissociation.

_Who's gonna come and save you from yourself again, as dark turns into blue?_

Plenty of people have told Dick to ‘rip off the bandaid,’ whether metaphorically or literally, but he’s never wanted to do it less than at this moment. 

The acrobat glances at his calves. The wounds there, partially obscured by scraps of fabric, are still bleeding. He knows he has to debride and disinfect the injuries.

He also knows that it will hurt.

Biting the inside of his cheek, Dick reaches down and peels his shredded pants away from the cuts. His skin screams, and he slumps against the wall, breathing raggedly. It _burns._

By the time he’s finished cleaning and bandaging the wounds, his mouth is full of blood, too.

Dick stands, shoves the pain into a space below his heart, and throws the rust-stained wreckage into the trash can he’d been _so generously_ provided. This room is the size of a shoebox and has the same amenities, which only makes it feel like more of a prison.

 _It’s just like all my nightmares,_ he thinks, staring at his battered legs. _But this time, I can't wake up._

The dream deepens as the sound of whistling reaches Dick's ears. He tenses, hands reflexively twitching for his missing escrima rods.

Thankfully, his visitor isn't Slade— it's Terra. She greets him with an insincere smile, saying,

"Finally up and at 'em, are we?"

Dick doesn't offer her a response; his attention is locked on the black briefcase in her hands. She notices his gaze and flings it headlong at his face. His hands automatically snap up to catch the item, sparing him a broken nose.

"What's this?" He asks, turning it over. _She wouldn't throw me a bomb, would she?_

"Your new uniform," Terra replies. "Change and get your ass to the monitor womb. We're gonna have some fun."

Seeing as Slade Wilson's idea of fun usually involves murder, Dick can't really match her enthusiasm. He unlocks the case with trembling fingers. 

Nestled within it is a streamlined variant of his Renegade costume. 

Feeling sick to his stomach, the acrobat stares at the S-shaped insignia pinned to the armored vest. It's in the same place that the Robin logo once sat. 

_Insult to injury,_ Dick thinks, and then some sixth sense prompts him to duck. Another item sails over his head and impacts the wall. Stunned, he glances over his shoulder and finds a smirking Terra. He hadn't seen the other apprentice leave, much less return.

_She's dangerous._

"There's your weapon. Now, hurry up; you know he doesn't like to wait," she says, snapping her fingers.

Dick waits for her to leave before pulling off his shirt. The contusions littering his torso, all in various stages of healing, twinge in pain as he slips on the uniform, but he's more concerned by the fact that said costume fits well. 

Too well. 

Dick decides he doesn't want to know why.

After he finishes getting dressed, the acrobat walks over to the last object Terra had tossed at him. It's a sword. _His_ sword, he realizes as he pulls it free of its sheath.

This is his old weapon, still bearing the marks from battles he fought long ago. His eyes trace over a slash in the blade from Cheshire's claws, a chip in the pommel from the boy he'd trained in Nanda Parbat, and countless other nicks and dents from Slade himself.

"How the fuck did this survive the explosion?" Dick mutters. He can believe that Terra saved Slade, but why on earth would she stop to take this? 

_Was he really that confident that he'd get me back?_

Swallowing down the horrible thought, Dick leaves the room and finds his way to the monitor womb, where the mercenaries are waiting.

"Well, isn't this a blast from the past," Slade says, his eye sweeping over Dick. "'Course, you used to be shorter. Tinier than Terra, I think."

 _Maybe because I was thirteen,_ the acrobat thinks mutinously. _Did it not occur to you that you were beating the shit out of a_ child? 

Oblivious to his anger, Slade continues, "Let's see if your skills are still sharp, little bird."

Taking a wary step backwards, Dick brandishes his sword. Slade merely inclines his head towards Terra, who withdraws two knives.

"No powers, dear child."

"Don't need 'em for this," Terra chirps.

She launches herself at him. Dick immediately turns his sword to the side, catching both strikes. He rams his knee into her solar plexus before she has the chance to defend herself. Terra shrugs off the hit and roundhouse kicks him in the ribs, making him stumble. Again, instinct saves him; he raises the blade in time to deflect a sharp jab.

As the apprentices duck and weave around each other, Dick feels acid creep up his throat. _It looks like my body remembers what my mind forgot. No matter how much I hate it, this sword still feels like an extension of me._

But as he had realized when he was fighting Sergeant HIVE, instinct isn't enough. Terra slams her heel into his wrist— forcing him to drop the sword— and knocks him to the ground. Dick jerks his head to the side, narrowly avoiding a knife to the face. It clips his earlobe instead.

The light glinting off of the steel catches his eyes. As he turns to look at it, the world loses its dreamlike quality, and his heart stops. Dimly, he's aware of Terra saying something, of the malice in her sugary words sinking into him like a gunshot.

But he can't focus on her, because the blade of the knife is approximately five inches long.

_Terra is fast. She's strong. She'll kill anyone if Slade asks her to._

_And the lens of the only camera on the lot was_ covered with dirt.

Dick bucks his hips, dislodging Terra. She yelps as he reverses their positions and wraps his hands around her throat.

"Did you kill her?" The acrobat demands. "Did you kill my fucking friend?!"

Terra can't answer Dick, seeing as he's crushing her windpipe, but the look in her eyes tells him he's right. White-hot rage floods through him, and without thinking, he moves to snap her neck.

A dart hits Dick in the arm. His fingers abruptly go slack, and Terra shoves him away, coughing. Her fair skin is already stained with bruises.

As he slips into unconsciousness, he feels a pang of regret.

_If I'd just had five more seconds, she would've been dead._

-

Slade wakes him up by ramming his steel-toed boot into Dick’s hip.

The acrobat claps a hand over his mouth to keep from screaming. He glares at the mercenary through his bangs, wishing with all his might that he was able to retaliate. As it is, Dick is dazed, injured, and far from his prime; there's no way he would win if he picked a fight right now. 

"You still have it in you, kid," Slade laughs. "Terra's not going to be able to talk for the next couple of days."

"I really don't care," Dick replies. His hand falls from his face, tracing the path that his tears once took. "She stabbed Taylor. On your orders."

"That she did. But honestly, little bird, that girl wasn't supposed to die. Terra doesn't know her own strength."

Dick staggers to his feet, frowning. His head is still spinning, but he can tell— _There's something weird about the way he said that. Is he… scared of Terra?_

Not that it matters. "Why would you drag a civilian into this, anyway?"

"I needed you to get the message," Slade answers, shrugging. "Had the girl lived, she would have told you I was looking for you. Red X served the same purpose, albeit inadvertently."

Dick grits his teeth at the mention of Jason. "People aren't toys. You can't play with their lives."

"Of course I can. That's what the world does, little bird. _It plays you._ You have to learn the game if you want to survive."

"Can you spare me the pseudo-philosophical bullshit? What do you want?"

Slade presses a knife against Dick's cheek, a hair's breadth from the old wound that mars it.

"Watch your tone," he says delicately. "But to answer your question, I want something from CADMUS Labs. They recently developed a weapon that I find _very_ interesting. You'll go get it for me, won't you?"

Dick doesn't want to speak, but if he nods, the knife will bite into him. "Yes," he whispers.

"Yes, what?" Slade asks. 

The tip of the knife breaks his skin.

"Yes, sir."

The knife promptly disappears into a holster. Dick sucks in a breath, trying his hardest to stave off a panic attack.

Slade, of course, doesn't care. As he leaves the room, he calls, "Blueprints of the facility and personnel files have been sent to your wrist computer. I want this done tonight."

The acrobat wraps his arms around himself. Everything is suddenly overwhelming: the buzz of the fluorescent lights, the frantic drumbeat of his heart, the cool prickle of sweat on his skin. He needs it to stop. 

He needs to be the Renegade.

Some part of Dick detaches, taking up residence in the sky above him, and he finds himself straightening and walking out of the facility. His fear slips through his fingers. It doesn't matter. _He_ doesn't matter. The mission does.

Renegade's fingers dance across the computer, pulling up the documents that had been sent to him.

It will take him twenty minutes to reach CADMUS Labs. He'd better get started.

* * *

Dick snaps back to himself in the middle of the lab. Bodies are lying at his feet. He blinks at the carnage, uncomprehending. 

What had he _done?_

Slowly, he picks up the weapon and walks toward the exit. Glass crunches underneath his boots, and faint music reaches his ears.

_Hunting high and low, to seek revenge._

Red light washes over him.

_Brand new moral code, got made reluctant renegade._

The sound of sirens gets louder.

_Leaving empty souls when he avenged, evil spirits flowed._

His heart isn’t racing anymore.

_He drank the blood like lemonade._

Dick presses his gloved fingertip to his lip. It comes away crimson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slade admits that he was unnerved by (if not outright scared of) Terra in Tales of the Teen Titans.
> 
> If you found the last portion confusing or disjointed, I promise it was intentional. The lyrics in there are from Morcheeba's Blood Like Lemonade.


	16. Allen Walker - Faded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Act III (Spiral) - Part IV: Lull
> 
> The Titans' hopes of finding Dick are beginning to wane. But in the final hour, Raven finds a light in the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I sincerely apologize for disappearing like that. The aforementioned dumpster fire spread to all the surrounding buildings. _(:_」∠)_ 
> 
> Anyhow, this may be Side Effects' last update of 2020, but rest assured, I have no intention of abandoning this fic! Thank you for your patience!

_Where are you now?_

_(Were you only imaginary?)_

Dick has been gone for seven days, ten hours, and thirty-six minutes.

Raven knows this because Cyborg has been counting the seconds against his will, compelled to by the parts of him that run on ones and zeroes. But she's sure that if she asks, Red X and Starfire will be able to produce the same string of numbers.

The two of them have borne the brunt of Dick's absence: the princess because she feels emotion more acutely than Raven could ever imagine, and the thief because it is bringing up "terrible fucking memories." She's caught flashes of those memories, of bitter uncertainty and childish spikes of hope and pleas of _come back, you're my big brother and I need you._

She and Garfield have been struggling, too. Every night, Raven casts her soul over the city, seeking Dick's mind. She swears she feels him sometimes, but he always slips through her feathers before she can tell where he is.

Garfield, on the other hand, searches during the day. He's running through the streets right now, shifting between all of his sharp-nosed and keen-eyed forms.

As if she's summoned him, Raven feels the shifter's emotions roll and spike. Seconds later, her communicator buzzes.

"Everyone, get to CADMUS Labs right now! There's something you've gotta hear!"

Raven rushes to the living room. Starfire is already ripping open a window and taking off, Cyborg dangling from her hands. X swears at their backs and turns to Raven, saying,

"My grapple is jammed. Mind giving me a lift?"

Her instinctive response is _No,_ seeing as the thief once threw a stun grenade directly into her face. But Raven doesn't have the time to be vindictive; Garfield might've just found their friend. She creates two circular platforms and motions for X to hop onto one. Together, they rise into the air and chase the slowly fading plume of fire in the sky.

"What is this?" X asks, reaching out and running his fingertips through the contrail.

"The ends of Starfire's hair can burst into flame," Raven replies, wondering why she's telling him at all. "It, uh. Leaves a convenient trail for the rest of us."

"Convenient is one word for it," X mutters. 

Not knowing how to respond to that, Raven inclines her shoulder in a half-shrug. They spend the rest of the trip in silence. Upon spotting the lab, she lowers both platforms. X dismounts with a neat flip, pulls off his skull mask, and stuffs it into one of the many pouches on his belt. Though he's gone without it many times in the past week, the sight is still shocking to the demoness.

He just looks so _young._

As she stares at the white streak in his hair, X rolls his shoulders. His cape falls down around him, and the rest of his costume vanishes behind a curtain of gray fabric.

Raven shakes off her surprise and drawls, "Any reason for the impromptu fashion show?" 

Even through the domino mask, she can see him raise a sardonic eyebrow. "It wouldn't do for my rep or yours if Red X was spotted running around with the Titans."

The demoness nods in acquiescence and follows the insistent tugging on her soul towards Garfield. He, Starfire, and Cyborg are standing in front of a balding man in a lab coat.

"Hello," she greets. 

Despite her forewarning, the man leaps a good five feet into the air. "Oh my god! Oh… oh, you're Raven, aren't you? Who's that?"

"A friend. Call me Redbird," X says, the alias rolling off his tongue with surprising ease. "I heard that you have something for us…?"

"Johnson, I'm Dr. Johnson. And I didn't think you all would care," the scientist begins hesitantly, "but six days ago, someone broke into the lab and stole one of our experiments. It was a compact weapon with some _very_ interesting features—"

"Can you describe the thief?" Starfire interrupts. Cyborg side-eyes her, surprised by her brusque behavior, but Johnson doesn't seem to mind.

"Before I saw the security tapes, I thought it was that Red X fellow. Then, I watched them and realized it was someone else— someone dressed in black and orange and carrying a freakin' sword!"

 _Black and orange,_ Raven presses her lips into a thin line, the memory of the imprint flashing through her mind. _This really_ is _Dick's worst nightmare come to life._

"Can we see the lab where you were keeping the weapon?" X asks. 

"Uh, sure," says Johnson. "It's still a complete mess, but… here."

He motions for the Titans to follow him down a winding path. Raven has no idea how he can navigate the maze of corridors; she loses track of where they are in three turns.

"This place is a fucking disaster. Dick had to have had blueprints," X murmurs. "And a way to get around security, though that's never been hard for a Bat."

"You're saying it was premeditated?" Cyborg whispers back.

"Positive. Goldie couldn't do this on a whim. More importantly, he _wouldn't._ I'm guessing that Deathstroke wanted that prototype for something."

"If this break-in was approximately one week ago, it must've been right after Dick was taken," Raven realizes. “That means… Deathstroke could have already used the weapon.”

On that harrowing note, Johnson ushers them into the lab. As he said, it's a mess. Broken glass is strewn about the floor, tables and chairs have been overturned, and most disturbingly, there are traces of blood on the walls.

"It was him. This kind of damage is pretty consistent with his fighting style," Garfield pauses, his nose twitching. Whatever he smells makes him frown.

"And he... he was hurt. Some of that blood is his."

Raven's heart sinks, and Starfire's eyes start glowing green. They'd expected it, but theorizing and knowing are two different things.

"Um, do you need anything else?" The scientist asks meekly. "I have to get back to work."

"That'll be all," X says. "Thanks for the help. Raven, if you would…?"

Raven pulls them through her soul-self and spits them out in the compound. X leaps over the back of the sofa and sits down hard, his brow furrowed.

"If Deathstroke is having Dick steal shit, it won't be long before he has him graduate to murder," he says. “I can’t believe that lab didn’t fucking call us. If we’d known…”

“It woulda helped,” Cyborg agrees. “How'd you find out what happened, BB?”

"I was nosing around as a dog and I heard them talking about a break-in. It was pure fucking luck, dude, 'cause I've been in that area before; I didn't find _jack_ then."

"What must we do?" Starfire asks. Her hands are balled into fists, and her mouth is trembling. "I do not enjoy sitting here and doing nothing when our friend is missing— it makes me think of my parents. They allowed the Gordanians to take me, and not only did they never fight for me, they also barred me from returning to Tamaran when the war ended."

"Your parents are assholes," X says bluntly. "We're not gonna do that. We're gonna keep our eyes peeled for any more theft— weapons, tech, all that good shit. Hopefully, that’ll lead us to Goldie. Y’all good with that?"

"Absolutely," Raven promises.

* * *

Unfortunately, making a plan and executing it are _also_ two different things. Despite having told the police to report any thefts directly to them, and despite upping the frequency of their patrols, the Titans haven't found anything.

"I'm sick of this," Garfield mutters. He hauls Kitten Moth up by the arm and tosses her into the police cruiser, snarling, "We're out here picking up losers like her while our teammate is in the hands of a _total psycho."_

Ignoring Kitten's protests, Raven shuts the door and waves the car off. "I gather that you found out more about Deathstroke?"

"The Doom Patrol had some files on him. And lemme tell you something— Mento didn't even wanna give them to me. Cliff went behind his back and sent me a list of the sickest shit I've ever seen. Like, this dude trained his oldest son as a mercenary and got him _killed."_

"Seriously?" Raven asks. She launches into the air and flies toward the compound. Garfield morphs into a bird and continues,

As if that wasn't bad enough, Mento thinks that Deathstroke used to work for the League of Assassins. That’s a whole 'nother ball game.

"A Justice League kind of ball game," the demoness agrees, touching down in the living room.

"What?" Cyborg asks. X, who is tinkering with his grappling gun, glances up as well.

"Deathstroke is a problem. A JLA kind of problem," Garfield elaborates. "Maybe it's time to call for backup."

"We can't," X says vehemently. "The more people that are involved, the more targets Deathstroke has. The more _hostages_ he can take. If other people got infected with the shit that's in me right now, and they died trying to help Dick, he'd never forgive himself."

"You have a point, but we aren't getting anywhere," Raven points out. "Green Lantern could scan the whole city with his ring. Superman could hear his voice from a continent away. Hell, why don't we call Batman? With all his tech—"

A spike of fear hits her at the mention of the Dark Knight, and she realizes that X isn't trying to be an asshole— he's genuinely scared by the prospect of calling the League. She falls silent and glances at Cyborg, who says,

"Let's give it a few more days. If we can't find him after that, we can get the Outsiders, and they'll contact the League."

“Fine,” X sighs.

But even though the deal is done, Raven isn’t satisfied. Later that night, after she’s sequestered herself in her room, she takes a seat in midair, places her fingertips together, and closes her eyes. 

Her soul leaves her body.

The large raven rises into the air and soundlessly leaves the compound. It soars into the city, turning its head this way and that. The longer it goes without finding the boy it seeks, the more its feathers puff up in agitation.

The minutes tick away, and the raven feels its body calling insistently to it. Lowering its head in resignation, it changes directions and begins to return to its home.

That’s when the raven senses It. Right against its wingtip is the touch of a familiar soul.

The bird careens through the sky, trying to pinpoint the soul’s location, but the tenuous thread connecting it to its host starts to snap. Crying out in defeat, it races back home and settles into its body.

With a gasp, Raven crumples to the floor. She doesn’t let the pain of the impact (or the pins-and-needles sensation that comes from pushing her limits) faze her for long; she gets to her feet and launches herself through the wall.

 _Where,_ she thinks desperately, _where did I feel him? He’s so close; I can’t let him get away!_

She casts out her soul again, feeling the minds of thousands of people rush through her feathers. Thoughts and feelings pop against her like fireworks. 

But none of them belong to Dick.

 _Did I imagine that? It felt so much stronger than all those other times…_ Raven’s shoulders slump. Her soul starts to trickle back into her body, making her limbs feel leaden. Just as the fatigue and the pain begin to overwhelm her, she pinpoints Dick’s location.

The demoness abruptly yanks the mass of black energy towards her, drags a breath in through her gritted teeth, and begins to fly in that direction. 

The sound of wingbeats stops her in her tracks. Shocked, Raven glances over her shoulder and finds that her teammates are hot on her heels. A scowling X is cradled in Starfire’s arms, and Garfield, in pterodactyl form, is carrying Cyborg.

Upon seeing that they’ve caught Raven’s attention, the princess calls, “My friend, why did you leave in such a hurry? You scared us!”

“Yeah, man!” Cyborg agrees from his place in Garfield’s claws. The shifter says nothing, but she feels him poke at her mind. His curiosity is shot through with irritation, but there’s concern there, too. It’s in all of them.

Raven feels her lips curve into a wobbly smile. _Sometimes I forget that I’m not alone anymore._

Aloud, she says, “Sorry for taking off, but I found Dick.”

“Where?” X demands.

Raven turns and points towards the tallest skyscraper in the business district. Even at this distance, its neon sign can be read by all.

_WAYNE ENTERPRISES_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Starfire's backstory is adapted from The New Teen Titans, as is Raven's time limit.
> 
> Next time: the moment you've all been waiting for!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please tell me what you thought.


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